I’ve often wondered just how much prosecco is consumed at the annual Milan Furniture Fair. With attendance figures in recent years hitting 400,000 and with daily events scheduled from festive breakfasts to decadent late-night discos, even the clumsiest estimate sits at several million bottles. This year, with the fair cancelled for the first time in its almost 60-year history, it was not just the bottles that were stoppered: an entire industry dried up.

On April 8, two weeks before the Salone del Mobile would have been in full swing (it was first postponed to July, then shuttered altogether) a group of nine big brands – including B&B Italia, Boffi, Cassina, Cappellini and Poltrona Frau – issued a Design Manifesto urging the Italian government to immediately reopen furniture factories if it did not wish to bring down economic Armageddon.