Riccardo Tisci
My definition of beauty is something between extremely ugly and extremely fantastic.Collection: Ugly
Black is always elegant. It is the most complete colour in the whole world, made of all the colours in the palette.Collection: Black
Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Someone who makes me laugh has every chance to seduce me.Collection: Sexy
Being a creative mind, you have to examine who you are every day.Collection: Creative
Couture is emotion. Couture is freedom. Couture is not thinking about pricing and not thinking about craziness. You can do whatever you want to do in couture.Collection: Thinking
For me, darkness is something very beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
I tried to never exclude people. I know what it means to be left out.Collection: Mean
I am interested in beauty when it has something special and mysterious.Collection: Special
I’m very faithful to myself. When you do things that are true it just comes out quite instinctively.Collection: Faithful
To leave Italy at 17 without money and go to a country like England is very rare; Italians stay with the family until 30, 35. But I couldn't stand to live in this box anymore. I was getting bigger, and the box was getting smaller.Collection: Country
I like when a man has one strong accessory. If it's a watch, it has to be major. If you have strong shoes, it should just be the shoes. I don't like when a man is overdone-that's just bad taste. Coco Chanel was always saying you have to watch yourself in the mirror, put on a lot of things, and then take them off. I think it should be that way for men as well.Collection: Strong
Religion and love don't have a price, don't have a gender, a skin color, nothing. We are all on the same plate.Collection: Color
Anything I do, I do with my heart. This is why I sometimes get very upset or sometimes get very personal when I'm working.Collection: Heart
I try to destroy taboo in fashion-which is something I learned as a kid. I come from the street, and you have to be a survivor.Collection: Fashion
My truth is this: That I don't know what will happen tomorrow because you can never know.Collection: Tomorrow
I always think about the streets because that's where I come from and that's where I'm going to die one day. That is my life.Collection: Thinking
I hate vulgarity. I hate vulgarity even though it attracts me - and it attracts me very much. I love all that is transgressive or vulgar. But in my opinion, it has to reach a limit that is always a little surreal and never becomes in your face.Collection: Hate
People's wardrobes in history are something that society and culture imposed. But sexuality is not about the way you dress.Collection: People
My life has changed financially and I have a name, but I try to never forget people on my journey.Collection: Journey
If you buy a Cartier ring you want people to know it is a Cartier ring or a diamond, or a piece of art that's giving an emotion - then people read it and say, "wow that's really amazing". With prêt-à-porter you see people in the street, in a club, in a restaurant or whatever, and you think, "Oh my god, he's wearing my trousers!" In a way it's more open - people can put together the way they want - mixed with other designers.Collection: Art
I've always been obsessed with things that are half animal and half human - like mermaids and Minotaurs - because they are trapped in an animal body. And I felt trapped in my own life.Collection: Animal
I brought a lot of the codification of womenswear to menswear. Why? Because when I was a child, I was wearing women's clothes adjusted to me.Collection: Children
My mom didn't teach me about Marco Polo. She didn't teach me about Napoleon. She didn't teach me about any of that. But she did teach me how to survive and to be a good person. And you need to be a strong woman to do that. She's the biggest person in my life. She's my Virgin Maria. That's why I love religion so much.Collection: Mom
My obsession when I was kid, from '85 into the '90s, was Gianni Versace. It was Helmut Lang. It was Margiela. So I said, "I cannot have Givenchy only as a luxury house; I'm going to introduce products for everybody, things that are reachable."Collection: Kids
My relationship with religion is very strong because it was my hope, and it gave me two things very important in my life. It gave me the belief and it gave me a point to reach: Don't do something bad to the people next to you.Collection: Strong
I come from a very poor family, with sisters. I never really knew my father, so I miss this strong image of a man in my life.Collection: Strong
In the beginning I didn't want to do a menswear collection. It felt a little forced. And then I found that it was an amazing world.Collection: World
I remember that my sisters gave me this beautiful, like, empty book for Christmas. And I would draw all these beautiful women. Most of the time it was mermaids and a Minotaur: half human, half animal. I used to be obsessed with Minotaurs when I was a child.Collection: Beautiful
One thing my mom didn't want any of us to do was to cry or to complain about life. Every day and night, even when we didn't have much food, we would pray together. And that for me was a beautiful moment. The fact of being poor didn't really hurt me.Collection: Beautiful
In the beginning, I was very punk. I was very revolutionary. When they asked me to do Givenchy, I didn't want to do it. My friends pushed me. But the situation with my family was so bad financially. I really did it because, when they told me how much they would pay me, I saw that my sisters and my mom could have a better life.Collection: Mom
I was the last one of nine kids - eight girls and me last - and my sisters were going out. They were teenagers. And as they were getting ready, I would sit on the bathtub and watch them put on makeup and transform themselves - you know, putting on clothes and giggling about the boys they were going to meet and everything. So for me, that was an amazing thing - the fact of transforming themselves.Collection: Girl
I had only two girlfriends. I didn't have many friends because I was staying at home and dreaming - drawing and dreaming.Collection: Dream
Couture was only for rich people. Givenchy was for rich people. A bag cost 5,000 euro; a coat cost 10,000 euro. In the beginning, I couldn't react. I was just working like a machine, because I wanted to make the house happy.Collection: People
I didn't invent hot water. But when I approach menswear, I do it in a very honest way. And my menswear and womenswear are very similar, in the sense that I put men in leggings and lace shirts.Collection: Men
I didn't know I was going to become a designer; I was going to become a successful person, but I really wanted to be free.Collection: Successful
I arrived here, with a destroyed house, with nothing. I had to do everything very slowly. And with a little team and a great president, we achieved a lot. I am happy here. For now, it is still Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci, and I think that it will be for a long time, because it will be difficult to evict me from my house. I feel good here!Collection: Team
Couture is also a matter of respect. In the end, all of these women sewing and embroidering the clothes, whom are almost all my mother's age, they're all 70 or 80 years old, have been here for a lifetime. They spend hours on it and come up with solutions. And because it's on a catwalk, people see if for five seconds and don't even see the technique, the drapery.Collection: People
In spite of the fact that everyone thinks I am very much a rottweiler - that i am very dark and everything - I have a side that is very romantic that i show to very few people.Collection: Dark
Most little children's obsessions are robots and Barbie dolls. My obsession as a kid was the Versace house. I used to save up my pocket money to buy Versus shirts. I was that obsessed!Collection: Kids
My first stage was couture. Boom. Couture. It has changed because women have evolved. Back in the day there were princesses. Today, there are still princesses, but she no longer rides around with horses and a carriage. She parties, she goes on vacation, she goes on boats. She wants to be dynamic. I understood this and I kept going. We do prêt-à-porter, men's, and couture.Collection: Horse
I am close friends with Marina Abamovich, so I love strong, very aggressive political art. She is like a mom who wants to adopt me.Collection: Mom
I don't have anything against homes for the elderly, but my mom, after having nine children, after all the sacrifices, living in an apartment - it gave me anxiety. Being the only male in the family, I said, "No I can't let this happen." Therefore I signed, because I wanted to buy a house for my mom. I started at Givenchy and the whole fashion world was saying, "Couture is finished." No, couture is not finished. Couture has changed - thank goodness.Collection: Mom
It's super-essential. Even though I don't have a very big team, for me, the word muse may be démodé or not. I adore it, but I am also one, in my delirium, to be quite classical. For a designer - especially a male designer - he absolutely has to have that female voice by his side, which he listens to, he filters, he digests. It's a huge need, because when you see through the eyes of a man, you see a woman a certain way, and how they have little tricks of their own.Collection: Team
My luck has always been how I've had a family of women around me, and I have women who are very close to me - for example, Mariacarla Boscono, Carine Roitfeld, Marina Abramovic. I have different women whom I adore and value.Collection: Luck
There are some people whom I esteem and want their opinion first, but that's my way. It is difficult for me to delegate. In the end, I do have two or three people on my team who I listen to.Collection: Team
I am one who is very meridione - Southern Italian. I am proud of this. I design everything with my team, which is fantastic and small. I design by look. For example, people always comment to me, "When you do men's shirts, you always keep them closed on the catwalk." That's my thing.Collection: Team
For me, aesthetically, Donatella Versace represent what the Italian woman is. There is always the American rock thing, the aristocratic, above-the-rest British manner, but Italy is at the heart of it.Collection: Heart
I am super-Italian, not even European - Italian. And this is very precise. It's like houses. Over time they stabilize themselves in the terrain. I am still at the first step of a long staircase.Collection: Italian
I am very attracted to the United States. Why? Well, as a little kid from Southern Italy, not from a wealthy family, it was always my dream to go to the Big Apple. I'm not one to listen to classical music. I am very much for what is American, but I also prefer the America of the ghetto. I love the Bronx. I love hip-hop and R&B. I love electro-Latino, Latin music, that whole realm.Collection: Dream
I listen to certain opinions because those are important to me. I am a Leo, so I very much have my feet on the ground, and I know what I want, but there is also a side of me which is a little softer, still a little bit of a boy who has not grown up and who listens a lot.Collection: Boys