IKEA's blue bag is the perfect pop-culture reference for a generation stuck in a rotation of rental flats, says Will Wiles in his latest Opinion column.

IKEA's blue Frakta bag is having a fashion moment. It used to be that, once you'd used it to carry home your inexpensive kitchenware, IKEA's masterpiece in blue polypropylene became very handy for lugging about the laundry. But things have changed.
Ever since Balenciaga unveiled a large leather shoulder bag that bears an unmistakeable resemblance to the furniture giant's durable plastic carrier, it has taken on a third life as a source of fashion cachet. Homages have spread across the internet like a rash. There are Frakta baseball caps, face masks, watch straps, backpacks and even thongs (ouch). I call this type of design "popcorn". Rooted in the pop-culture or nostalgia tastes of the moment, it is made solely for the purpose of driving clicks online and generating publicity for the maker. Films, box sets and computer games become endlessly remixed through a relatively small set of classic design languages. Breaking Bad episodes as Penguin books covers. Mad Men as a Tube map. Guardians of the Galaxy as if it had been designed by Saul Bass. And so on.
IKEA's blue Frakta bag has taken on a third life as a source of fashion cachet
Even if considerable human skill and ingenuity goes into the results, an algorithm could generate the ideas. A spinning top could generate the ideas. Popcorn is the meme-ification of g...