In Italy there is a supreme know-how and a desire to achieve that doesn't really exist anywhere else. You can't make clothes like that in America, because it's just not in the tradition.

I'm more European than anything. I've lived in America for 10 years, and I live in Florida because I like to be outdoors. I live a week in New York, and I live a week in Italy. When I'm here in Italy, I come to work at eight in the morning and usually I leave work at 10 o'clock at night. I don't even breathe the air. So that's why I like to live outside.

There's another little vision in my life, going into a restaurant in New York years ago: All the women are sitting in their little strapless dresses with their cleavage, and there's this one woman in a sleeveless turtleneck and pants. And I can tell you that every man in that restaurant looked at that woman's arms. It was hypnotizing when everything was covered up. Just the face, the conversation - and you see the arms. And the arms and the hands become an obsession. I like that.

It's the moment when you're making the clothes - "Doesn't this need that?" That's how it comes. It's not from, like, thinking for hours. Most of the things happen when you are in the fitting. When you make clothes, the fitting is the decisive moment.

Walk your dogs on the beach that's my luxury. The food's not so good in West Palm, but you can't have it all.

I'm working for a woman, not a lady. What I hate the most is that "lady" talk. You know, when I read a review, "The lady wears a Bottega Veneta. . . ." What lady? It's the same girls who are walking the runway an hour later elsewhere. But probably it is just the sophistication in our material, the nuance of the color, or the quality of the makeup or the hair that make people think that way. Most people just don't understand simplicity.

I've been in clothes-making for 32 years. Think how many times I've made a blazer in my life, how many shirts I've made. What's interesting is to strive for a certain perfection, and what's perfect is nothing.