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.

No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde, for most fashion people, creativity is quite taboo.

I love art and music more than I love fashion, to be honest.

My life has changed financially and I have a name, but I try to never forget people on my journey.

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.

My friends were like, "Oh, this weekend, we're going to go shopping." "Oh, this weekend I'm going to go to see the judo champion" ... you know. And I couldn't do anything.

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.