Alessi

Giovanni's eldest son Carlo joined the firm in 1932 while still a teenager and quickly became its primary designer. Through the late 1930s and into the postwar period, Carlo introduced stainless steel to the workshop's material palette and pushed forms into more adventurous territory. His Bombé tea and coffee service of 1945, a set still in production today, established the company's capacity to produce objects that balanced skilled industrial fabrication with genuine formal ambition. The polished and satin-finish steel products that followed found rapid international success.

The company's transformation from a quality metalware workshop into a major force in international design culture began in earnest when Alberto Alessi, Giovanni's grandson, joined in 1970. Alberto held a law degree but had grown up inside the factory, and his instinct was to treat design not as product development but as cultural production. Throughout the 1970s he initiated collaborations with architects and designers whose practices were then reshaping the discipline: Ettore Sottsass, Richard Sapper, Achille Castiglioni, and Alessandro Mendini all came into contact with Alessi during this period.

The 1980s brought a sequence of objects that gave the company its lasting public profile. Aldo Rossi designed the La Conica espresso maker in 1984, a conical, geometrically austere machine that was his first mass-produced object and a symbol of the decade's Postmodern design moment. The following year, American architect Michael Graves produced the 9093 kettle, with its bird-shaped whistle and contrast of polished steel and coloured plastic handle. The Graves kettle became the best-selling single product in Alessi's history. Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif citrus squeezer of 1990, drawn on a restaurant placemat and sent to Alberto Alessi unsolicited, completed a trio of objects that defined the brand's public image: playful, technically precise, and willing to let concept override convention.

Alessi has since worked with more than 300 designers and architects, generating thousands of products across tableware, kitchen tools, watches, textiles, and home accessories. Products from the catalogue sit in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The company continues to operate from Crusinallo, near Omegna, and remains family-controlled.

Alberto Alessi received the American Prize for Design in 2025.

On the Nordic auction market, Alessi pieces appear across metal objects, kitchenware, and miscellaneous design categories. The dominant material is chromed and stainless steel, reflecting the brand's core output, with the top recorded sale on this platform being a chromed metal champagne cooler at 6,000 DKK. Michael Graves-designed kitchen objects and general kitchen sets follow in the price ranking. Swedish auction appearances cluster at Stockholms Auktionsverk Magasin 5, Formstad, and Höörs Auktionshall. The market here is casual rather than collector-driven: Alessi pieces trade as quality secondhand design goods, with the most sought-after items being recognisable signature pieces from the 1980s and 1990s collaborations.