I've always been obsessed with things that are half animal and half human - like mermaids and Minotaurs - because they are trapped in an animal body. And I felt trapped in my own life.

I've always been obsessed with things that are half animal and half human - like mermaids and Minotaurs - because they are trapped in an animal body. And I felt trapped in my own life.

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, aesthetically, Donatella Versace represent what the Italian woman is. There is always the American rock thing, the aristocratic, above-the-rest British manner, but Italy is at the heart of it.

My luck has always been how I've had a family of women around me, and I have women who are very close to me - for example, Mariacarla Boscono, Carine Roitfeld, Marina Abramovic. I have different women whom I adore and value.

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 used to hate to go to school, because when it was Friday afternoon and everybody was finished school, I knew I was going to work Saturday and Sunday.