These five years as a couturier have really changed my way of seeing fashion and my confidence with fashion. Couture is a dream.

I tried to never exclude people. I know what it means to be left out.

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.

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.

Most little children's obsessions are robots and Barbie dolls. My obsession as a kid was the Versace house. I used to save up my pocket money to buy Versus shirts. I was that obsessed!

I always think about the streets because that's where I come from and that's where I'm going to die one day. That is my life.

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."