What I've learnt

Brunello Cucinelli Designer, entrepreneur, humanitarian; 72; Solomeo, Italy

- Interview by NICK SULLIVAN

MY EARLIEST MEMORY OF STYLE IS from when I was nine or 10. My mother came home from the market bringing gifts, as if it were Christmas. She presented me with these green corduroy trousers. Back then, we would only be given one pair of trousers a year. I was a simple farmer, but still I didn’t like them. Wearing green didn't suit me. So when no one was looking, I went to the back of the house, I dug a hole, and I buried them. Sixty years later, I knew the exact spot where I had buried them. I went and dug up the buttons, which was all that remained of those corduroy trousers.

UP TO 15 YEARS OLD, I lived in the countryside, without running water, without electricity. In January of that year, we went to live near the city. We arrived in the new house and suddenly we had electricity, running water, a television, a bathroom. And I had had nothing like that the night before. That was a momentous change. The day after, I immediately started missing the silence of the countryside.