If I am in fashion, it is really due to very few designers that I admire - not because I don't like the rest, or that the rest are not beautiful, but because I am very selective. I adore Versace. I adore Helmut Lang, despite the fact that it's over.

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 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.

When I do a show I have such high emotion; the energy is amazing - but, people don't really see the details and the work and the experimentation that we, the designers, put into the clothes. With prêt-à-porter you're having a look.

I think my heart is in a very good place. And I think this is why I'm achieving what I've been asking to do in the universe for so long.

What I very much admire about the Versace maison, and what I am still trying to learn to do myself as I am still young, is that from day one until today, Versace is the peak of sexy but never crosses that red line into the vulgar.

My great strength, which I very much believe in, is family. For me, family doesn't simply mean components of DNA. I mean family in the sense of siblings. My mom and my sisters are the energy and inspiration in my life.