To love shoes is to love problems. Every season, starting a new collection is my greatest challenge. The blank slate in front of me, starting the process all over again, there is no greater challenge.
The sneaker comes from sports, but it's couture now. It's not made in Asia: it's made in my little village in Italy. I can customize everything. I use silk and diamonds and crystals. I think my sneakers have a lot of good vibrations.
A woman can slip on a pair of embellished cage heels one night and a pair of streamlined, lightweight sneakers the next day. The beauty of modern luxury is the absence of rules.
At school I was a disaster, but when I would design, I could feel a sense of pride. I've always designed, and I would literally design everything I'd see: cars, bikes, motorcycles - everything.
The place where I think social media fails is in showing the knowledge, the tradition of stitching the clothing, of cutting the fabric, of the tannery, of the skinning of the jewels - this knowledge needs respect. Online and social media is the future, but we need to learn from the past, too.
My family owned a gelateria business, so as a kid, I would always design ice cream cones. If you want to transform a shoe from design into a properly wearable product, however, you need technical knowledge. So I worked for four years inside a local shoe company.
