If you are an investor, I hope that you will stay with me for three, four, ten years. But if you ask me to make profits in ways that I have to change my allure, I won't do that. I won't lose my identity.
I've always had an aversion to debt.
If I give you the right conditions to work, and I put you in a beautiful place, where you feel a little bit better about yourself because you know your work is being used for something greater than producing a profit, maybe you will get more creative; maybe you will want to work more.
I love a modern suit paired with a polo or cotton T-shirt... and then paired with leather sneakers, or cashmere joggers with a tailored blazer and a sleeveless puffer vest to get the ultimate informal and formal combination.
There is definitely a comeback of the idea of dressing well every day. Nowadays, suits can be worn for many occasions - to work or to school, to a dinner party or red carpet event.
Order and tidiness is the first law of Heaven.
From a design perspective, the U.S. has always been a great source of inspiration for me.
I don't want to buy something that has harmed anyone. This is my absolutely strongest belief, and I believe other people think this, too. Or if they don't now, they will.
Italian companies need to re-convert themselves, and such a re-conversion must be toward a better, higher standard.
Yes, I was a hippy - absolutely a hippy.
A cashmere knit is like a book. It is something to save and go back to time after time. It is the feeling of an embrace.
Black is overrated. You'll never find it in my stores. Of course it's slimming, but it's just used too much, especially for men. One black suit by one designer, another one by another - they all look the same in the end. If I walk into a crowded hotel lobby and I'm wearing a black suit, I just look like everyone else.
I've spent a lot of years living with normal people. If I take a private jet to go to a meeting in Milan, well, that's my business; I can do it. But I don't live for it.
I like the idea of an enlightened principality. In the early eighteen-hundreds, in Germany, there were princes who built schools, streets, homes. I like that.
I come from a farming culture, where we valued raw materials above all.
I shave every day with an ancient manual razor. It was my father's, and I love it.
I am very rigorous with myself.
In my office, I have a very beautiful marble bust of Seneca. I always have my eye on him when I'm taking phone calls. He's one of the many philosophers I've always read and admired.
I had a very simple life growing up in the farm country outside of Perugia, and biscotti and warm milk with a tiny bit of coffee were a big part of my morning ritual before walking to school.
To me, the simplest things can have the highest value.
