As we chat a little later in the office above his workshops in the northern suburb of Prachachuen, my eyes fix on the plethora of objects Lamont has amassed over the years.

Most are of Asian origin, and speak to his eclectic taste, and eye for craftsmanship. They also recall his four years in the 1990s in Hong Kong, at Altfield Gallery as a manager.

It wasn’t. Lamont’s path to becoming a designer of furniture and objects has been circuitous, largely because it was never part of the plan.

Here, too, Hong Kong played a role, firstly in the form of Altfield co-owner David Halperin, an angel investor and Lamont’s main backer when he decided to shift gears in 2000.

Later came another Hong Kong connection, then working at one of the largest furniture companies in the United States – Baker, Knapp and Tubbs – who asked him to find an accessories designer.

“Baker were going to the trade shows with all the other showrooms. [Baker] would make their choices, receive their shipments four months later, and realise they all had the same things. They wanted something new, something different,” says Lamont.

“My original proposal had been, ‘Go to Thailand, find craftspeople and give them fresh, original designs to make,’ so I told Baker I’d do it.”

It wasn’t entirely youthful bravado. His father sourced and sold handicrafts from Asia and Africa – objects Lamont describes as having “humanity and soul” – and family holidays often included visits to craftspeople, so Lamont had a sense of what was possible.

“I mostly gave instructions,” he says. “I asked a Thai statue maker to do a big vase and to put the [snail-like bronze hair] he used on his Buddhas on its surface. I had no track record, but they were kind enough to go along.”

A buyer, in San Francisco was, too.

“She looked through my photos, made her selection, and said, ‘That’s worth US$220,000, can you do it?’” he smiles. “That will go down as my greatest single moment in the business.”

As a style, it is helpful to think of Lamont’s as sumptuous minimalism: lines are clean, but finishes are opulent, and feel – both tactile and visual – is as important as form.

Lamont prefers natural materials and says he is drawn to those that are (or were) living, particularly less usual by-products from the food industry, such as parchment and shagreen – in this case, stingray, not sharkskin. He also likes materials with a history.

And so the lacquer and eggshell inlay used to striking effect on his Cupola lamp and Orpheus console table, for example, was invented by Tang dynasty craftsmen in China, while the straw marquetry on the Estribor and Amadeo cabinets borrows from 16th century France.

“They start out as bloody and smelly,” he says, “and become transformed.”

Art deco and the 1930s are sources of inspiration and in particular French interior designer Jean-Michel Frank, creator of the classic Parsons Table, who also enjoyed turning ignoble materials into objects of elegance.

Over the years, Lamont and his team of 100 artisans have tinkered with these materials, introducing new finishes, aestheticising aspects originally viewed as flaws, such as variations in colour, and breathing new life into fading techniques.

So straw is burnished, woven and lacquered and dyed in absolute and ombré shades. Metals are patinated, painted, silvered and gold-plated and often cast from organic objects such as rope nets or, in the case of the Lost Leaf Vessels, actual lotus leaves. Meanwhile, shagreen is used on entire walls, not just handgrips.

Still, he doesn’t stray too far, focusing on the kind of voluptuous forms China’s Ming dynasty created, but changing their texture and scale.

This is luxury reimagined for today’s sophisticated but more casual clientele – people who throw barbecues as well as dinner parties, wear hoodies as well as designer outfits, and who might put their feet on the furniture.

“I’m trying to create a raw luxury,” he says. “I don’t know what we could do more to be exacting, precise and beautiful; it took years.”

Another apt description would be “mysterious”.

His artisans’ skilful manipulation of surfaces, through hours, days and even weeks of careful attention, verges on alchemy, and is what makes you want to appreciate his designs with your fingers as well as your eyes – not just to grasp, literally, what pieces are made of, but to find out if they feel the way you imagine.

“The skin is the part of the product you touch, that you see, and to fill that with intrigue, and depth, and magic, so that you look at it and say, ‘I haven’t seen that before,’ that’s special,” he says.

“When I show people who haven’t seen [our designs] before, I don’t have to say anything for them to ask, ‘That’s very beautiful, am I allowed to touch it?’

“And I always tell them, ‘Please do, please do touch it’.”