I've studied, I've traveled the world, but the most important things I've learned in Italy making the round of workshops with my grandfather Dante. When it comes to leather, he was a real artist - he could sniff out the best immediately.

As a girl, I used to zip myself into a snowsuit, fall into the deepest snowdrift I could find and sweep my arms and legs into the powder, making snow angels that would crumble within minutes of their genesis. Despite their rapid disappearance, something about these frozen, evanescent angels has stayed with me ever since.

I started listening to the Cure around the time I discovered Joy Division and, like Joy Division, they have shaped my taste in all sorts of dark and dreary ways.