Couture is also a matter of respect. In the end, all of these women sewing and embroidering the clothes, whom are almost all my mother's age, they're all 70 or 80 years old, have been here for a lifetime. They spend hours on it and come up with solutions. And because it's on a catwalk, people see if for five seconds and don't even see the technique, the drapery.

When I arrived here at Givenchy, there was a lot of confusion. Before me, there had been some great geniuses - John Galliano and Alexander McQueen are great masters. They marked history. But when I came in after Julien Macdonald, it was also a bit of a mess, because not even I could understand what the true identity of Givenchy was. Everyone thinks that it's only Audrey Hepburn, but there is a whole other world behind it.

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.

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.

I was a very nice boy. I was well-educated ... very Catholic family. So I was very respectful, never late at work. I was always the last one to leave. It's always been that way in my life.

For me, aesthetically, Donatella Versace represent what the Italian woman is. There is always the American rock thing, the aristocratic, above-the-rest British manner, but Italy is at the heart of it.

I hate vulgarity. I hate vulgarity even though it attracts me - and it attracts me very much. I love all that is transgressive or vulgar. But in my opinion, it has to reach a limit that is always a little surreal and never becomes in your face.