I like transparency. I love to have views throughout the house.
If you acquire things, you have to let them go.
In my studio, I forbid people to work if they have a down day.
I'm not a person who regrets - it doesn't make me smarter to regret something.
I'm not the type of person who feels bad about things before. I choose what to do at the moment, and I have a very good reason for it; otherwise, I don't do it. If later my feelings change, I should celebrate now by being more wise, not feel bad about before.
Great design is so many things all at the same time. It is emotional, functional, and responsive. It creates an unwritten dialogue, a connection, between itself and those who experience it. It is open to interpretation yet created for a specific purpose. It creates meaning and value.
The very best design, I feel, is that which resonates so deeply that people can't help but discover something within themselves when they see it.
I think what makes me different is that... I am comfortable with expressing my vulnerability. I think designers often want to just put the loveable ideas out there. Ones that are imaginative but not very introspective. It is more rare for a designer to explore his or her disappointments and moments of disillusion and doubt.
I want to create a body of work that is really, deeply important to people. One of the vehicles I use is business.
There are many design companies, but there are few designers who organize their own business and open it up to other designers.
A lot of companies are able to do without design. A few companies are able to do without creativity. A very few. Creativity is crucial to your business.
Often, I'm sitting opposite a client, and I'm thinking, 'How do I convince him to not copy the best-selling product out there?' And sometimes I don't know. Really, it's smarter to be a thief.
A lot of my work is intelligent, a lot of the work is beautiful, but I make ugly things, too.
Beauty is very important, but it's not the most important thing in the world.
I really feel that design has the capacity to communicate, and I really have concentrated on the communication of positive values.
Everything has been done. It's not possible to create something completely new, something that has never been seen before. It's only possible to make new combinations, establish new connections between things we usually take for granted.
I love Milano. Historically, the city is the biggest intellectual design thinking container. It is the cradle of design as well as the hometown of the mothers of its important heroes.
I've turned into something of a health nut.
Luxury is not about the things that you own. It is about something that reflects your personal values, something that shows the choices that you have made in your life.
I have 60 people working for me in my studio. That's luxury if you ask me. I just dream. Tell those people that I want a certain thing. Those people will then invest days, and sometimes months, in bringing that idea to life. What more could you ask for? That's luxury for me.
