We didn't have a television, so we sat around the table, and me and my sisters and my mom would do these jobs, like, a penny for a piece, you know, these paper jobs. You know, what really saved me as a human today is my sisters and my mom.

My obsession when I was kid, from '85 into the '90s, was Gianni Versace. It was Helmut Lang. It was Margiela. So I said, "I cannot have Givenchy only as a luxury house; I'm going to introduce products for everybody, things that are reachable."

When I was far away, when I prayed every night, I felt I was very near with my heart, with my brain, to my sisters and my mom.

Sex is something I live very well, but it is something I revealed very slowly in my fashion. What I do is emotional. For me, there is a base, which is my Italian roots. It's a strong passion for fashion, a passion for sensuality and dressing for one's self.

There was a loneliness because kids my age had video games, tennis. They traveled. They had beautiful clothes. I was wearing my sisters' old clothes that were adjusted on me, because we didn't have money to buy clothes. So that really made me go deep inside on my heart, because the only things I could have with me were my heart and my brain.

I can give a beautiful present, and that may change the lives of people around me.

Couture was only for rich people. Givenchy was for rich people. A bag cost 5,000 euro; a coat cost 10,000 euro. In the beginning, I couldn't react. I was just working like a machine, because I wanted to make the house happy.