Our philosophy is always to search for the best quality. That is something our father taught us. It's one way to be different from your competitors. You can try to be cheaper, or you can try to be better.

When we started, there was lots of formalwear made with quality fabrics, but Loro Piana's innovation was to use these in casualwear, too.

My family have been wool merchants since the 19th century. My first job, aged 18, was buying fabric from my father to produce and sell ties. But I was also at university in Milan.

People from the country are very simple and loyal. I like that. I prefer to deal with the campesinos rather than the political people in Lima.

At one point, my house was a school for autistic children. I opened up my doors to about 30 kids and their families at the time. I was turning into Mary Poppins because I had to do something for these kids who have nowhere to go. So my house was the school for two years.

My parents would always have us, as many times as we could, sit together for dinner and talk about what was happening in our lives, and so we created a great recipe where I could be completely honest with my mother and to an extent my father, being an attorney.

Many's the dead author whose body of work has been marred by overzealous publishers or family members. If this happens to me, I vow to seek out the responsible parties and haunt them to the point of death.

Family is 100 per cent my top priority.