Out in the rolling curves of the Umbrian countryside, Brunello Cucinelli is indulging his utopian urges. Headquartered in the 12th-century hilltop village of Solomeo, once largely ruined but now restored and fruitfully occupied, the cashmere mogul runs an experiment in what he calls ‘humanist capitalism’.

This is not fantasy or folly, though there are certainly eccentric insertions here and there. Cucinelli’s mission is grounded in the simple belief that you can treat your workers with respect, let them leave the factory every evening at 5pm sharp (he insists on an email shutdown until they show up again at 8.30am), and still turn a tidy profit. Last year his eponymous company returned a net income of over 42m, with sales up nearly 11 per cent in Europe and over 36 per cent in China.