Alberto Alessi took his family metal workshop and turned it into a design house.

Alessi began in 1921 when grandfather Giovanni set up a metal workshop in Omegna. Alberto, a third-generation Alessi and the grandson of the Moka brewer's inventor, studied law but joined the family firm the day after graduating in 1970.

Instead of selling only in-house cutlery and cookware, he opened the company to a stream of outside designers - Sottsass, Sapper, Graves, Gehry, Hadid and many others - turning the workshop into what he called a 'Dream Factory'.

The strategy made ordinary objects become collectible. Sapper's Kettle with a Singing Whistle and Graves's Whistling Bird teapot each sold over a million units, and Alessi established itself as a research lab in the applied arts.

Alessi became a global design brand, worked with over 500 designers including Sottsass, Sapper and Graves, and sold iconic pieces like the whistling kettle for decades.

Outsiders brought ideas and fame an in-house workshop could never generate alone.

Limited-edition designer objects commanded a price premium on a modest product cost.

The collaborations generated editorial and word-of-mouth buzz instead of big ad spend.

It let a small family firm project a global, cultural identity rather than a factory one.

A family firm making a commodity can escape the commodity by borrowing outsiders' creativity: open the product process to stars, and the brand's 'poetic' side becomes the moat.

Alessi remained family-run under Alberto and broadened into watches, jewellery and appliances while staying a reference point for design-led manufacturing. The move became a classic case of a family firm using external design as an engine of reinvention.