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.

I am interested in beauty when it has something special and mysterious.

In the beginning I didn't want to do a menswear collection. It felt a little forced. And then I found that it was an amazing world.

When I was far away, when I prayed every night, I felt I was very near with my heart, with my brain, to my sisters and my mom.

When I went to England, to Saint Martins, I was traumatized, in a positive way. It was that British sense of transgression and the dark. Then when I went to Paris, I was doing couture, which everyone was saying was finished. Bullshit! For me, in the end, it was all a mixing of ingredients.

Sex is something I live very well, but it is something I revealed very slowly in my fashion. What I do is emotional. For me, there is a base, which is my Italian roots. It's a strong passion for fashion, a passion for sensuality and dressing for one's self.

Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.