You know when people say “Made in Italy” and everyone immediately pictures fashion runways, thousand-euro handbags, and Michelin-starred chefs plating like abstract sculptors? Well, forget that. Or rather, shrink it down a bit. Because the most authentic Made in Italy—the one that smells of aluminum-stained hands and garage-born brilliance—was born here: among the mountains of northeastern Piedmont, where Lake Orta sleeps silently under low clouds and factories work like busy ant hills.
The design you sip with coffee, while the kettle whistles
☕ Bialetti: espresso as a manifesto
In 1933, Alfonso Bialetti decided that good coffee shouldn’t be limited to the bar. So he invented the Moka Express: octagonal, shiny, brilliant. It brews coffee, but it also brews culture. It makes family. It makes the Italian breakfast. You put it on the stove, it hisses, you smile—and somehow, the world spins a little smoother.
🐦 Alessi: poetry for the kitchen
Then came Alessi, turning ordinary objects into the extraordinary. The 9093 kettle with the whistling bird? A pop art masterpiece. The “Anna G.” corkscrew? A smiling design icon. From Omegna to the MoMA, in a single stroke of genius.
🔌 Girmi: home appliances in mini skirts
In the ’50s and ’60s, Girmi burst into Italian kitchens like a rockstar. Blenders, fryers, juicers—all colorful, electric, and optimistic. Modernity snuck in through the back door and headed straight to the stove.
🥘 Lagostina: steel and Philosophy
With Lagostina, even a pot tells a story. Patents, stainless steel, heat-distributing bottoms better than a Neapolitan pizza. And the Domina pressure cooker, cooking in record time—freeing your afternoon to live. Or to lounge around, which might be even better.
Cusio: the faucet Mecca that goes bling
Lake Orta isn’t just about kitchens. It’s also home to one of the most important faucet manufacturing districts in Europe. In Gozzano, Pella, San Maurizio and beyond, faucets are born looking like sculptures. Here are just a few names:
- Fantini Rubinetti – pure design and clean lines
- CRISTINA Rubinetterie – tech meets sustainability
- Stella – iconic since 1926, with the legendary Roma series
And then there’s Paffoni, Frattini, Emmevi… all crafting beauty and water together.
Glasses, metals and zen souls
Between Val Strona and Valsesia, metals are worked with care that borders on devotion. Eyewear is made with the precision of a metronome in a drummer’s hand. Tradition and innovation melt together like a ’70s sample in a trap beat.
A Made in Italy that doesn’t walk the runway: it makes History
Made in Italy isn’t just a brand to sell to Chinese or American tourists. It’s an attitude. It’s building beauty with your hands—doing it well, doing it forever. It’s inventing, failing, redoing. It’s genius and sweat.
No Fashion Week pass needed. Just a weekend.
Book your stay at Seme di Faggio, nestled in the hills above Lake Orta—where design took root among forests and fog. Where every faucet, moka, and pot tells a silent revolution.
➡️ Book now your stay at Seme di Faggio and discover the real Made in Italy—raw, unfiltered, unforgettable.
🔍 Curious to learn more about this living, breathing heritage?
Visit the Ecomuseo del Lago d’Orta e Mottarone: a unique project that promotes the material culture, landscape, craftsmanship, and local industries that shaped the Made in Italy we know today.
🚰 Want to touch this story made of ingenuity and metal?
Don’t miss the Museum of the Faucet and Its Technology in San Maurizio d’Opaglio—a surprising place where water becomes narrative and innovation.
