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

I brought a lot of the codification of womenswear to menswear. Why? Because when I was a child, I was wearing women's clothes adjusted to me.

When I started, everyone said couture was finished and I was so scared. Actually I was more terrorized than scared. I was arriving from a provincial area of Italy. They called me in to do Givenchy and I just thought, Wow.

Even though I had a fantastic family, I always felt lonely - not lonely in the melancholic way but knowing that, to really survive, I have to do everything for myself. I had to work and study, and I was out in the street really surviving, bringing food back home.

In spite of the fact that everyone thinks I am very much a rottweiler - that i am very dark and everything - I have a side that is very romantic that i show to very few people.

This is why I decided to work with Nike, too, because it is even more mass-market than Givenchy and could make entry-price shoes and make people dream to be part of the journey.