Quotes from Stefano Gabbana

Customers are very demanding and well informed.

I adore Britain! It's my favourite country; I love their eccentricity. I find Britain so inspiring.

To me, flowers are happiness.

Dreams can still come true you need a great deal of energy and determination, and a little bit of luck.

Dreams can still come true; you need a great deal of energy and determination, and a little bit of luck.

You have to work very hard behind the scenes, to make a message clear enough for a lot of people to understand.

I like to eat pizza and spaghetti pomodoro, and I'm crazy for dessert. I like all of them: cassata, cheesecake, biscuits.

The fashion industry now has a direct relationship with its customers. Thanks to things like Twitter, ideas can be shared and circulated.

My dream is to have a baby, not to adopt one, because I am not up to it and I don't feel strong enough. I want my own child, a biological child, the fruit of my sperm, conceived through artificial insemination because it wouldn't make sense for me to make love to a woman I don't love.

My mum is totally crazy for fashion still.

I had a few problems. I didn't realise it until I started going to therapy. I did it for 10 years, two days a week, and pretty quickly I understood that a lot of my suffering, many of my issues, were rooted in my realising that I was gay when I was a little boy. I knew I was different. That made me very fragile.

It's always the same - all men and women want to be sexy.

I drive around on my scooter in Milan alone - we don't have bodyguards or anything like that. I am a fashion designer, not a celebrity, and although I get stopped for autographs and the like, I don't think I am famous.

Fashion is OK for five days, one minute, six months, but style is for the rest of the life.

We don't think only men can be powerful and strong. Behind the heads of the Mafia, the leaders of culture, there are always very strong women. European culture is a matriarchy, especially in the south. The women have a lot of power.

I am opposed to the idea of a child growing up with two gay parents. A child needs a mother and a father. I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother.

Each one of us interprets various stimuli according to our own personal sensibility.

Italians know that what matters is style, not fashion. Italian style does not have social or age boundaries.

My summer tip is to taste the freedom given by the long days - and by the holidays!