I’ve never been a fan of home stores.
There’s something artificial about them.
I don’t like the fact that flat pack furniture, like a relationship, is basically ruined once it has been disassembled and is virtually impossible to move to a new place or put back together.
I don’t like the generic prints and paintings on offer; the framed pink parrot illustrations, gilded mirrors nor the big green plants in terracotta pots.
At first glance the shells arranged on the glass counters could tell a thousand stories but on closer inspection, they tell none at all.
Ikea relies on a “fixed path” design.
This means that the layout of the store firmly steers its customers in one direction.
Without having to think much people can navigate the showroom, marketplace and self-service warehouse smoothly until they reach the check out.
Despite my disdain for home stores, at the age of 30 I found myself in Ikea searching for a dining table, on a misled path of my own making.
I met Will in 2016.
We had our first date at the Barbican Conservatory. He bought me a red heart shaped balloon for Valentines Day, we went to Amsterdam and Budapest on weekend getaways and stayed in aspirational Airbnb’s with high ceilings and wooden floors.
We moved in together after one year.
In 2016 I was 28. Instagram was popular, getting married was not, unless you lived in the suburbs and the realities of living in London were dream crushing.
It was expensive and hard, it was not all it was cracked up to be.
As an offspring of baby boomers, I grew up thinking I would be able to have a family and own a house by the time I was 30, like my parents.
But by this moment in time a different, sort of replacement lifestyle had overtaken that impossible ideal.
It was the done thing and felt far more pressing to post photographs on instagram of oneself standing in certain places wearing certain clothes.
Columbia Road flower market, Franks Bar, Shoreditch High Street, Palm Vaults, Sketch.
It was a fickle but it came with presents, a counterpart to take your picture and hundreds of likes.
After several years freelancing in the fashion industry I had landed my first corporate job at a generic online marketplace.
Will and I worked for the same company.
One of the job perks was a hefty discount on the high street clothing they sold.
Since my meagre salary left little room for saving each month I just bought clothes.
I bought skinny jeans, Converse and Calvin Klein underwear sets. I bought Adidas crop tops, embroidered bomber jackets and tight dresses. I bought Nike sliders, body suits and bikinis.
I bleached my hair blonde and woke up every day at 5.30am to blow dry it straight while Will and I wore matching sneakers to the office.
It was in the midst of this commercial fantasy that we decided to move in together.
The flat was small, with one bedroom and old carpets. It was in Zone 3 which by London travel card standards is expensive with time consuming commuting.
Since I had all the clothes I could possibly want, my attention quickly turned to decorating the apartment.
We bought a gigantic mirror and placed it in the hallway.
A sofa next, which came in handy when we stopped sleeping together.
But before that, I became fixated on buying a table.
It would be made of wood, I imagined. Long enough for 8 people with benches on either side. We would sit at the table, making artwork together. I would be writing. The imaginary table meant so much to me. It was something I could actually afford to invest in. Something that could last forever.
No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find it.
Was I fixated on the long wooden table because my parents had one in their mortgaged home? Or was I defined by the products I had accumulated in my own environment? Since I had taken that corporate job, high street clothing started to take over my entire personality. I wanted everything that everyone else seemed to have. I wanted a boyfriend, a flat, a sofa and a table. I wanted to appear that I was living the right life even though I wasn’t.
Shortly before I met Will, I went on a date with a guy who owned a production company. I remember instantly liking the idea of him; The whale tattoo on his forearm, his big hands, nice trainers, six foot build, black beard and successful media job. As we sat together I noticed a gold pendant hanging from a chain around his neck, I reached out and took it in my fingers. It was engraved with the image of Virgin Mary but when I turned it over I saw that the piece of jewellery was branded, it was from Supreme.
How disappointing and vapid I thought, before making out with him in an alleyway behind the pub.
Sometimes it’s hard to separate what you want from what you need.
I did not need nor deeply desire any of the above.
The table was merely an idea of something, as was my relationship with Will.
In the end I left him because I was unhappy. I left him because I didn’t like myself with him and I left him because I couldn’t buy a table with him.
It took me a while to get over the initial shock of realising that I was not only unhappy in my relationship but my whole life.
The corporate world reminded me that you can’t buy happiness. Home stores provide easy and cheap solutions, high street clothes fall apart after one season and the lives we see on instagram are nothing but contrived snapshots which do not reflect reality in any way.
True happiness is free.
Ikea relies on a “fixed path” design which theoretically works for everyone but fortunately life does not.
There is always the possibility to change direction before you reach the check out.
Artwork by Glenn Whiting @whitingglenn
...it was from Supreme 🤣