Top 19 Quotes by Giuseppe Zanotti

My family owned a gelateria business, so as a kid, I would always design ice cream cones. If you want to transform a shoe from design into a properly wearable product, however, you need technical knowledge. So I worked for four years inside a local shoe company.

Formal is formal. I can't wear sneakers all the time. Sometimes, I wear other shoes. It's not my challenge designing formal - it's so boring - but it's still important. I sell a lot of classic black sneakers made from every material because everyone loves black, and if you mix and match material, you get an opera.

Kanye West is a brilliant poet and artist. He and I work in a very similar way. We feel the vibration, the power of something, and it inspires us to create, whether it is music or design. It is the same process. Working with Kanye is a joy and great privilege. In 2012, we did collaboration together.

Sneakers are a new era. Anyone can feel new with a new pair of shoes. They make you feel contemporary. It's fun because I'm not a young designer, and it opens my brain. Hip-hop isn't just for the U.S. Everyone loves it.

The place where I think social media fails is in showing the knowledge, the tradition of stitching the clothing, of cutting the fabric, of the tannery, of the skinning of the jewels - this knowledge needs respect. Online and social media is the future, but we need to learn from the past, too.