BILLY, the world’s favourite bookcase

As Benjamin Franklin once said: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”. To this short list I would make just one addition: the BILLY bookcase.

BILLY, named after an IKEA advertising manager, was first developed by the Swedish furniture manufacturer in the 1970s. Since then, it’s become one of the Swedish brand’s best-selling items. Tens of millions of BILLYs have been sold around the world and Bloomberg even created a ‘BILLY bookcase index’, which compares purchasing power in different countries.

This simple set of shelves has become a symbol of our modern age: cheap to the point of being disposable, the flimsy yet functional bookcase is purely utilitarian. 

With house prices rising, more of us are renting than ever before. Owning any expensive, high-quality furniture is becoming a rare and impractical luxury. Self-expression in our homes has become more about what we put on and in the furniture, rather than the style or appearence of the furniture itself.

Whether it’s books or DVDs, trinkets, house plants or family photos, we curate our shelves and ledges to present an image of ourselves. We all have to think carefully about what’s in the background of our selfies and on our webcams.

BILLY is far from the first piece of flat-pack. We were hammering together our own furniture and puzzling over hieroglyphic instructions long before the UK’s first IKEA opened in 1987.

Lupton Morton, a mail-order furniture company, was an early pioneer of what was then called ‘knock down’ furniture. Their now iconic ‘Campus’ range was initially marketed at universities and offices, but when Jasper Conran’s Habitat acquired Lupton Morton in the late 1960s, they started selling the range as their own.

The furniture was cheap and fashionable, and all you needed to assemble it were the supplied allen keys and a good deal of patience.

Our obsession with flat-pack has grown ever since, and most furniture, whether bought in a shop or online will arrive ready to be assembled in a brown cardboard box. In spite of all the hammered thumbs, the missing screws and the back-to-front shelves, the allure of low-cost, inoffensive furniture has proven itself to be immense.

If it breaks, you can bin it and replace it. If the whole set goes out of fashion, a home makeover can be quick and affordable.

But our need for continuous replacement, rather than upcycling and repair, is at odds with our efforts to tackle the climate emergency and the growing mountains of rubbish taking over the world. IKEA has recently initiated a large-scale recycling scheme, but will this be enough to mitigate the impact of our disposable furniture culture? It’s too soon to tell.