I am one who is very meridione - Southern Italian. I am proud of this. I design everything with my team, which is fantastic and small. I design by look. For example, people always comment to me, "When you do men's shirts, you always keep them closed on the catwalk." That's my thing.

I was the last one of nine kids - eight girls and me last - and my sisters were going out. They were teenagers. And as they were getting ready, I would sit on the bathtub and watch them put on makeup and transform themselves - you know, putting on clothes and giggling about the boys they were going to meet and everything. So for me, that was an amazing thing - the fact of transforming themselves.

For me, darkness is something very beautiful.

Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.

I come from a very poor family, with sisters. I never really knew my father, so I miss this strong image of a man in my life.

I've got what I want, and I've got the luck to express myself and to be paid and to do what I do as a creative person.

With couture you have faithfulness - people are faithful to you. In couture, you will see that the cut looks like a lace dress from a distance, but it's only when you get nearer you understand that it's layers of lace, hand stitched in a certain shape, all the work - the zips, the buttons, the hooks... it goes on.