I am super-Italian, not even European - Italian. And this is very precise. It's like houses. Over time they stabilize themselves in the terrain. I am still at the first step of a long staircase.

I suffered a lot when there was, like, a birthday party and I was not invited. Not because I was ugly or stupid; I was not invited because the parents would say to the kids, "Don't invite him, because he's poor and he comes from the south of Italy, and he can't give you nothing."

Every two to three weeks, I was changing around my room. My room was made out of nothing, basically - a magazine, a little radio, a little bed - and I had the sensibility to put things together and match things in a certain way so that they were very special.

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.

I had only two girlfriends. I didn't have many friends because I was staying at home and dreaming - drawing and dreaming.

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.

I try to destroy taboo in fashion-which is something I learned as a kid. I come from the street, and you have to be a survivor.