IKEA is the go-to place for pretty much any young person tasked with furnishing their first home. Appropriate, then, that the company’s takeover of Padiglione Visconti at this year’s Milan Design Week, titled 1st, was dedicated to the experience of leaving home for the first time and finding the freedom to express yourself on your own terms.

In case you missed the announcement, the event also marked the launch of Catalogue!!!, Dazed’s new zine with IKEA. Catalogue!!! was available to pick up via a bespoke kiosk at the event, featuring work by Imruh Asha, Erika Kamano, Andrew Miksys, and more, many of whom went along to witness the exhibition for themselves. But that’s not all. Read everything you need to know about the launch, and IKEA’s 1st takeover, below.

THE EXHIBITION SPACE WAS A MAZE

Yes, leaving home for the first time is exciting, but it can also be confusing, overwhelming, and full of wrong turns. This feeling was recreated at the centre of IKEA’s 1st exhibition via a literal maze, which took visitors through a series of areas exploring different aspects of first homes, from a ‘garden’ of house plants, to a sculptural installation of IKEA boxes, to a lights and speaker system (AKA the debut house party).

Elsewhere, the exhibition space – designed by architect Midori Hasuike and spatial designer Emerzon – was naturally filled with IKEA products old and new, alongside a wall full of spreads from Catalogue!!!, plus...

FOOD, DRINK, AND LIVE MUSIC

A wide open space opened up beyond the 1st maze, with food and drink stalls serving IKEA classics, such as hot dogs. A stage took yet more inspiration from the furniture company’s showrooms, with multi-level ‘rooms’ filled with furniture. In the daytime, this stage was used to host talks including a conversation with Dazed founder Jefferson Hack, and in the night it was transformed into a nightclub, with live music from the likes of Lorenzo Senni, RPM, and Yas Reven. Partied too hard? No worries, you could always go and have a lie down in the space’s rafters, on a row of cloudlike IKEA beds.

IMRUH ASHA’S ARTWORK WAS EVERYWHERE

In a feature for Catalogue!!!, Dazed fashion director Imruh Asha took a nostalgic trip to IKEA to find inspiration for a unique photo shoot, reconstructing the company’s products and furniture into avant-garde looks and sculptures. Think: models peeking out from a nest of chairs, or draped in a multicoloured collection of coat hangers. The idea, he says, was to see the iconic objects with a new eye, as “just textures, shapes and colours”. In the 1st exhibition space, these images were hung – as huge, blown-up posters – among the rafters, bringing the reimagination of IKEA products beyond the pages of the zine.

THEN, THERE WAS THE ZINE ITSELF

You won’t be surprised to hear that Catalogue!!! continues the theme of first homes pulled throughout the live IKEA takeover at Milan Design Week. Exploring the seminal experience alongside the changing meaning of home for young people, the zine includes personal essays, interviews, photography, and pull-out posters (including Asha’s photographs, plus art by Daisuke, Andrew Miksys, Angèle Châtenet, and Erika Kamano).

Lucky attendees of 1st were able to pick up their free copies of Catalogue!!! from a purpose-built kiosk at the event, where they were stocked alongside archival copies of Dazed and old IKEA catalogues. What better way to get inspiration for your first place?