If you were casting a James Bond film set in the design world, you'd be mad not to screen-test Luca Alessi for the starring role. When he phones Life & Leisure, the ski instructor, scuba diver, racing car driver and aeroplane pilot is driving to the Alessi office from his home in Milan, before he flies to Paris for the Maison et Objet interiors and design trade fair. Devilishly handsome (thanks Google!), dashingly dressed and with an accent that could melt the heart of even this jaded hack over the phone, the international sales and development manager of Alessi in the Asia Pacific is flattered yet bemused by the 007 comparison.

"I wish!" he laughs. "No really, it's simply that in life I always like to learn things. After a couple of years of doing something I want to reinvent myself and start from scratch again, whether that is sports, flying planes or in business."

It was this desire for constant renewal that led Alessi to join his family's Italian kitchenware empire in 2013 after five years with the De'Longhi Group in New York then another two in Hong Kong, managing the Asia-Pacific, North America, South America and South Africa markets, working in product management and trademarks for electrical appliances.

A fourth-generation member of the Milan-based homewares company founded by Giovanni Alessi in 1921, it wasn't that Luca didn't want to join the company earlier, it was that he wasn't allowed to. The 100 per cent family-owned business requires the fourth generation to get at least two years' experience outside the company before they are able to join it, to guard against the nepotism that befalls so many other Italian family companies.

"On average a family business in Italy lasts up to the second generation, the lucky one goes to the third," says Alessi. "But in Alessi we are very lucky now because we are the fourth generation, and the policy of working outside of the family business has made us stronger. The company is able to see that the younger person is willing and capable to work, and then on the other hand working outside the company has given me the confidence to know I can have a successful career without relying on my last name."

That last name is synonymous with the tweeting kettles, phallic lemon squeezers and smiling corkscrews that pioneered the concept of "designer kitchenware" for a brand that is today sold in more than 5000 stores around the world.

Emphasis on family

Alessi will share the secrets to his company's kitchen drawer and countertop success when he speaks at the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival business seminar on March 17. The Kooples co-founders Alexandre Elicha and Nicolas Dreyfus, adidas collaborations global category director Rachel Muscat and Ermenegildo Zegna chairman Paolo Zegna are among other speakers at this annual event, which this year has an emphasis on family, Italy and collaboration – all subjects close to Alessi's heart.

He says that collaboration in particular has been key to Alessi's business model: the company does not compete with famous designers, but rather brings them into the company to work together. Philippe Starck, Zaha Hadid, Aldo Rossi, Richard Sapper and Michael Graves (that whistling kettle) are among the designers and architects Alessi has worked with over the years.

"When we work with outside designers it means we do not limit our creativity to the designers within our company, because creativity is an infinite world," says Alessi. "We call ourselves a research laboratory in the field of applied arts, and we see ourselves as a mediator between the most creative people in the world and the marketplace."

Australians account for a disproportionately large number of collaborators in the Alessi fold. They include Adam Cornish, Lisa Vincitorio, Helen Kontouris and Jim Hannon-Tan.

"It's amazing because, despite its small population, Australia is for Alessi the second-largest country in terms of designers," says Alessi. "I cannot say exactly why but I think it's something to do with the way you live constantly surrounded by natural beauty, and maybe that brings something out in design."

Firm's formula for success

But working with the best does not alone guarantee success: the company employs a mathematical formula of four measures against which each design is weighed, judging its value as an imaginative object and status symbol against the realities of function and price. Each design is awarded marks out of five to judge whether the piece should go into production.

"My uncle Alberto has a formula we call the Success Formula to decide whether a prototype can go out into the world," says Alessi. "Of course for Alessi function and price can have a lower score, but the other two aspects, the communication and the emotions, must be high. When you buy a juicer by Philippe Starck you want people to see that you have it and to know that you have good taste."

Despite the Success Formula, there have been plenty of failures along the way, including the Juicy Salif lemon squeezer by Starck, which some users say sprays juice everywhere except where it is wanted. The Hot Bertaa kettle, also by Starck, was hard to fill but nonetheless remains close to Alessi's heart – and hearth.

"Hot Bertaa was such a flop when we released it. Nobody was buying it," says Alessi. "Then last year I tried to find one because I'm doing my new house and wanted one for the kitchen, but it was impossible to find. I could only find it on eBay at crazy prices. It's really funny because the things that don't sell well at first often become more desirable in the end."

Despite legions of other companies now peddling generic "designer" kitchenware to the masses, it is this cult following from design tragics that continues to set Alessi's idiosyncratic and whimsical products apart.

"When I buy a product for my home, yes maybe I need the function of it, but why shouldn't I choose a beautiful product that affects my emotions?" says Alessi. "When I use a beautiful kettle it makes me feel better, and the end goal at Alessi is to give people products that make them feel a little bit more happy."

NEED TO KNOW

What The Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival business seminar

When March 17, noon to 5pm

Where Touring Hall, Melbourne Museum, 11 Nicholson Street, Carlton

Tickets $450 a head

See vamff.com.au