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 the last one of nine kids - eight girls and me last - and my sisters were going out. They were teenagers. And as they were getting ready, I would sit on the bathtub and watch them put on makeup and transform themselves - you know, putting on clothes and giggling about the boys they were going to meet and everything. So for me, that was an amazing thing - the fact of transforming themselves.

I was lucky. From the time I was a little, I was always surrounded by women, and I am very attracted to the feminine world, because I love the strength and romanticism, which in the end, you can find in my style.

The elegance of the Italian South is a very strong elegance and it is one that I bring. It is a sexy elegance - or at least, let's say less chaste.

I started to draw and design clothes that I couldn't find, because everything was all luxury, fashion clothes or very straight. So I mixed all of that together: Who says I can't put a man in a skirt? Who says that a man can't wear lace? Who says that men can't wear Swarovski? Who says that men can't wear makeup? You know what I'm like; for me, straight, gay, women, men, trans, we're all the same. I don't see difference.

When I was young, especially when I was at school, I thought couture was about big gowns, big hats (that is couture as well, of course) - but my couture is about going near the clothes and having a look at the details. I like people to have a shock in a chic way.

It's super-essential. Even though I don't have a very big team, for me, the word muse may be démodé or not. I adore it, but I am also one, in my delirium, to be quite classical. For a designer - especially a male designer - he absolutely has to have that female voice by his side, which he listens to, he filters, he digests. It's a huge need, because when you see through the eyes of a man, you see a woman a certain way, and how they have little tricks of their own.