I drive myself insane just before I start designing my new collections.

If I have time to myselff I tend to relax and read the daily papers in an old Florentine cafe called Giubbe Rosse, the place where the Futurist art movement began.

You wouldn't know itf but I am very good at cooking. However my partner Maki is much better then me so I don't get involved in the kitchen as much as I should.

You may not know it but I am very bad atf swimming. I've a strange relationship with water.

A book that changed me wasf written by Voltaire.

Candide, a small book with an epic arresting tale, is an extraordinary satirical journey lending philosophies to life at will.

Movie heaven is. . .

anything by Fellini (left).

When I was a child I wanted to be. . . an astronaut.

All my money goes onf international flights, hotel suites and lots and lots of expensive materials for my work.

At nightf I dream of dark and wonderful places.

My biggest regretf was not purchasing a collection of original Menphis movement pieces that were being sold for next to nothing by a suddenly broke art dealer I knew in London.

If I wasn't mef I'd like to be Neil Armstrong.

It's not fashionable but. . . I like gardening.

The soundtrack to my life. . . varies from day to day. And quite usually eclectic. Today it's anything by Notorious BIG, tomorrow maybe Beethoven's piano sonata 8 in C minor.

The best invention ever. . . religion.