The elegance of the Italian South is a very strong elegance and it is one that I bring. It is a sexy elegance - or at least, let's say less chaste.

My first stage was couture. Boom. Couture. It has changed because women have evolved. Back in the day there were princesses. Today, there are still princesses, but she no longer rides around with horses and a carriage. She parties, she goes on vacation, she goes on boats. She wants to be dynamic. I understood this and I kept going. We do prêt-à-porter, men's, and couture.

No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde, for most fashion people, creativity is quite taboo.

When I went to England, to Saint Martins, I was traumatized, in a positive way. It was that British sense of transgression and the dark. Then when I went to Paris, I was doing couture, which everyone was saying was finished. Bullshit! For me, in the end, it was all a mixing of ingredients.

I’m very faithful to myself. When you do things that are true it just comes out quite instinctively.

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 am close friends with Marina Abamovich, so I love strong, very aggressive political art. She is like a mom who wants to adopt me.