Alberto Alessi works from the kind of office in which most people would struggle to work at all.

On a bright summer day, the design impresario has drawn the shutters in his cluttered HQ just outside the northern Italian town of Omegna, on the tip of Lake Orta. In the semi-darkness lies a jumble of paintings, prints, teapots, ceramic statuettes, Pinocchio marionettes, paintbrushes, vials, books, mementos and a striking chess set with abstract Brancusi-like pieces. There’s barely an unoccupied space.