Cross an expert in luxurious fabrics with a master of jet-setting cool and you get this charming Milanese designer.

We try our hardest, really, we do, but sometimes words – and pictures – fail us. While the clothes made by Massimo Alba are undoubtedly beautiful, they are defined as much by how they look as how they feel: a quality that, with the tools at our disposal, we can only go so far to describe. There’s no analogy, no description that will suffice: to fully understand what these clothes are all about, you just have to experience what folks in the rag trade call “the hand” for yourself.

Mr Massimo Alba founded his namesake brand in 2006 after prolonged stints at several renowned cashmere brands, among them Agnona, now flourishing under ex-Saint Laurent creative director Mr Stefano Pilati; the Florentine favourite, Malo; and the now defunct but still much-loved Ballantyne. Wind the clock back to 1999 and you’ll have found him at the helm of Piombo, now known as MP di Massimo Piombo, another brand renowned for its virtuoso use of fabrics. Indeed, if there’s one connecting thread that can be found weaving its way through his résumé, it is fabric: the knowledge of it and the appreciation of it. It’s fitting, then, that it should take centre stage in his own vision of a stylish life.

As to the question of what that stylish life looks like, the answer is that it probably looks a lot like the one that Mr Alba now leads. This April we visited him at his apartment in Milan, which overlooks Castello Sforzesco. Also nearby are the church and convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Mr Leonardo da Vinci’s mural, “The Last Supper” adorns the wall. We then followed him to his showroom and studio in the waterway-woven Navigli district where he introduced us to his labrador, Jay, and explained to us the inspiration behind what he likes to call the Massimo Alba “project”.

Watch the video, above, to hear from the man himself.