Riccardo Tisci Quotes & Sayings

Even though I had a fantastic family, I always felt lonely - not lonely in the melancholic way but knowing that, to really survive, I have to do everything for myself. I had to work and study, and I was out in the street really surviving, bringing food back home. — Riccardo Tisci

My mom always said to us, "You cannot judge anybody because of the color of skin." There were a lot of African immigrants in Italy at the time, and people would not even say hi in the street. And my mom, she would invite these people to the house. This is what I got from my mom: to not judge people because of their sexuality, their skin color, their religion, nothing. — Riccardo Tisci

I can give a beautiful present, and that may change the lives of people around me. — Riccardo Tisci

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." — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

I think my heart is in a very good place. And I think this is why I'm achieving what I've been asking to do in the universe for so long. — Riccardo Tisci

I've got what I want, and I've got the luck to express myself and to be paid and to do what I do as a creative person. — Riccardo Tisci

No matter how much people in fashion think we're so cool and avant-garde, for most fashion people, creativity is quite taboo. — Riccardo Tisci

I had only two girlfriends. I didn't have many friends because I was staying at home and dreaming - drawing and dreaming. — Riccardo Tisci

For me, darkness is something very beautiful, — Riccardo Tisci

In Italy, especially in '70s and '80s, there was a lot of racism between north and south. And my mom immigrated from the south to the north, from Puglia, the heel of Italy. But what made me feel different was society, not my family. — Riccardo Tisci

My mom and my sisters were amazing; they always see the good in people. My mom, she doesn't know how to write and read much, but she's one of the most fantastic women I've met in my life. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

I'm very faithful to myself. When you do things that are true it just comes out quite instinctively. — Riccardo Tisci

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, — Riccardo Tisci

We didn't have a television, so we sat around the table, and me and my sisters and my mom would do these jobs, like, a penny for a piece, you know, these paper jobs. You know, what really saved me as a human today is my sisters and my mom. — Riccardo Tisci

I've had this sensibility since I was a child. If there was a black boy in the school, I was the friend. If there was an effeminate guy, I was the friend. If there was somebody who was poor like me, I was the friend. — Riccardo Tisci

People's wardrobes in history are something that society and culture imposed. But sexuality is not about the way you dress. — Riccardo Tisci

Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Someone who makes me laugh has every chance to seduce me. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

My life has changed financially and I have a name, but I try to never forget people on my journey. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

When I started at 9, I was working with plaster. I worked with a florist. It was a little illegal for kids to work. They would give you tips because they couldn't really give you wages. — Riccardo Tisci

I love art and music more than I love fashion, to be honest, — Riccardo Tisci

There was a loneliness because kids my age had video games, tennis. They traveled. They had beautiful clothes. I was wearing my sisters' old clothes that were adjusted on me, because we didn't have money to buy clothes. So that really made me go deep inside on my heart, because the only things I could have with me were my heart and my brain. — Riccardo Tisci

This is why I decided to work with Nike, too, because it is even more mass-market than Givenchy and could make entry-price shoes and make people dream to be part of the journey. — Riccardo Tisci

At the beginning, I didn't see what Givenchy could give my career. It was like, "Okay, I'll do it for the money for a few years to help my mom and my sisters." — Riccardo Tisci

When I was far away, when I prayed every night, I felt I was very near with my heart, with my brain, to my sisters and my mom. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

Religion and love don't have a price, don't have a gender, a skin color, nothing. We are all on the same plate. — Riccardo Tisci

I'm very well off but I can stay with normal people. I can do a super-luxury life, but I can do a very normal life and I'm not scared. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

My friends were like, "Oh, this weekend, we're going to go shopping." "Oh, this weekend I'm going to go to see the judo champion" ... you know. And I couldn't do anything. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

My definition of beauty is something between extremely ugly and extremely fantastic. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

Black is always elegant. It is the most complete colour in the whole world, made of all the colours in the palette. — Riccardo Tisci

I was a very nice boy. I was well-educated ... very Catholic family. So I was very respectful, never late at work. I was always the last one to leave. It's always been that way in my life. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

The aborigines in Australia, the way they dress is very honest; it's not about: "Oh, you wear a skirt, you're gay." — Riccardo Tisci

I suffered a lot when there was, like, a birthday party and I was not invited. Not because I was ugly or stupid; I was not invited because the parents would say to the kids, "Don't invite him, because he's poor and he comes from the south of Italy, and he can't give you nothing." — Riccardo Tisci

Every two to three weeks, I was changing around my room. My room was made out of nothing, basically - a magazine, a little radio, a little bed - and I had the sensibility to put things together and match things in a certain way so that they were very special. — Riccardo Tisci

I am interested in beauty when it has something special and mysterious. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

I tried to never exclude people. I know what it means to be left out. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

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. — Riccardo Tisci

I used to hate to go to school, because when it was Friday afternoon and everybody was finished school, I knew I was going to work Saturday and Sunday. — Riccardo Tisci