Lorenzo Osti, director of C.P. Company, was initially sceptical when a partnership with Italian homeware institution, Alessi, was suggested to coincide with Milan Design Week. Osti, who is the son of C.P. Company founder Massimo Osti, felt that ‘the world of steel products was too polished and refined’, at odds with the Bologna-founded brand’s subculture-infused sportwear, which is garment-dyed to prevent it looking too ‘new’.
‘We wanted the new piece of clothing to lose some of that awkward stiffness, so disliked by the English that they would make their butler wear their new clothes to make them more lived in,’ said Massimo Osti of the pioneering garment-dyeing process in 1986.
First look: ‘Alessi – C.P. Company’ at Milan Design Week 2026
(Image credit: Alessi / C.P. Company)
But after a visit to Alessi, which began as a metal workshop in Omegna, Piedmont, where the brand remains based, Lorenzo Osti was convinced. ‘I realised that what lay behind was actually very similar to us,’ he tells Wallpaper*. ‘The final result is perfect: pure forms and a material that retains fingerprints when touched. These objects will change and age alongside the people who use them: one of my father’s design principles translated into metal.’
Set to be launched at Milan Design Week, which begins next Monday (20 April 2026), the collaboration will span the disciplines for which C.P. Company and Alessi are best-known, comprising both the ‘domestic object’ – a series of homeware drawn from Alessi’s archive and reimagined – and new versions of C.P. Company’s Nylon B overshirt in three new colours, ‘Total Eclipse’ (a rich blue), ‘Malachite Green’ and ‘Deep Lavender’. C.P. Company says that the new colours were the result of ‘experimental processes and research into colours and finishes’, and draw inspiration from the Officina Alessi work uniforms, introduced during the company’s Ettore Sottsass-led rebrand in 1983.
(Image credit: Alessi / C.P. Company)
This extends to the objects reworked from archival Alessi pieces, including the 9090 espresso coffee maker by Richard Sapper (1979), two cups with saucers and a coffee spoon, designed by Jean Nouvel (2005) and the Arran tray by Enzo Mari (1961). ‘We [chose these from] the archive because they share the same aesthetic frequency as C.P. Company: authentic, technical forms rooted in our culture of metalworking,’ says Carlo Gasparini, design director at Alessi. For the project, each object is manually sandblasted and then coated in black PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition) to give a unique, gently textured finish.
Lorenzo Osti says the idea was to reflect C.P. Company’s own ‘experimental logic… where dyeing and finishing processes act upon the material, altering its texture and the way it develops over time.’ As these objects are used, ‘the surface of each object gradually evolves, taking on a unique material character’. Another inspiration was Umberto Eco’s concept of ‘Open Work’ – ‘neither object nor garment exists as a closed system but remains open to multiple interpretations activated through use’ – while the idea of creating a coffee set was a nod to the Italian ritual of morning espresso.
(Image credit: Alessi / C.P. Company)
The collaboration – which is officially titled ‘Alessi – C.P. Company’ – will be displayed in a special installation at C.P. Company’s Milan headquarters from 21-25 April 2026. Titled ‘Blend: The Kinetic Pulse of Italian Industrial Mastery,’ the display is rooted in both brands’ shared industrial heritage and will be ‘factory themed’. Meanwhile, the collaboration will be available to purchase on C.P. Company and Alessi’s websites, or at the C.P. Company showroom, where a limited-edition set containing all the products in special packaging will be exclusively available.