This project aims to relocate a Pierre Cardin retrospective in an Ikea store. Pierre Cardin is a businessman and a fashion designer who almost single-handedly democratized fashion and brought it to a broader public, which draws a compelling parallel to IKEA’s approach in business. The company that has been spreading the concept of democratic design across the globe is the perfect location to re-design this exhibition and not only based on their main commonality but also the way in would improve the visitor’s experience.

Both establishments have a lot in common, so it naturally made sense to relocate the Pierre Cardin Exhibition into IKEA. For instance, both are known in their industries for the democratization, globalization, and inclusivity. Pierre Cardin sells ready-to-wear, and IKEA sells ready-to-assemble. Pierre Cardin sold his sewing patterns to the public. Multidisciplinary approach of them brings culture to a day-to-day family experience.

The exhibition which took place in Brooklyn Museum presents over 170 objects drawn from his atelier and archive. His biggest accomplishment was to reproduce haute-couture-quality products to massive audiences. Likewise, IKEA has five pillars of democratic design: quality, low price, sustainability, function and form. Resetting the Pierre Cardin exhibition in Brooklyn IKEA is a natural progression to reach a broader audience.

This project is a collaboration with Cecilia Moscardo. My role was to create logical connections between IKEA and Pierre Cardin and create architectural visual representations of the combinations. Meanwhile, she worked on combining the visual identity of the two establishments, a new logo, and a color story for the collaboration. The concept development and content research were shared between us.