Design pioneer Gaetano Pesce on taste

My personal style signifier is Issey Miyake. I don’t think I have a personal style because repetition bothers me. But I find myself using miyake a lot because his work is very elegant and he was always experimenting. He was able to translate the Japanese style for people who like innovation. Right now I’m wearing a pair of pants from your folds please line – even when I treat them very badly, they stay in good shape.

The last item I added to my wardrobe it was a brown cardigan – i walked into Jenny Kaynea women’s clothing store in New York, I saw something I liked and bought it.

The place that means a lot to me It’s Hong Kong. I first went there in the 90s when I had a lot of work in Japan and would stop there to see a friend, and then the most recent visit was about five years ago when I had a project in China. The atmosphere there is one of constant imbalance. It is not stable or fixed, it is a place where insecurity is very present. And I enjoy it a lot. It is a wonderful city and the people are very special.

And the best memory I have brought home. It’s a huge white toy bear. I was on a street in London six years ago and I saw it in a glass case. So I bought it for my daughter, Fontessa; it was a problem putting him in a taxi and sending him to Kent. But he got a good reaction from her. Generally, however, I don’t buy souvenirs nowadays. The best thing about traveling is the idea of ​​traveling. It is important to face diversity and different cultures to come back with another notion of value.

Some of my best ideas I have come at night, when it is very quiet and where I start to think a lot. That is usually the moment when I can transform a thought into something else the next day.

The best book I have read in the last year. is by Marguerite Yourcenar Hadrian’s Memoirs. She was a great writer, an enormously intelligent woman. She wrote a book playing Emperor Hadrian and it really felt like he was doing the talking.

The music I’m listening to it’s electronic music like Blank & Jones because there’s a sense of space when you listen to that. That space can evoke memories of a sunset or a beautiful room. My mother was a pianist, so music is very important to me, I can’t do without it.

I have a collection of memories. I don’t collect anything [else] because it connects me with the past

my style icon It’s Jack Nicholson. He has always been very creative and very human in the way he acts. He looked particularly fantastic in easy rider. It opened up a new kind of way of making movies.

The best gift I’ve ever given. they were two beautiful Bottega Veneta coats to friends of mine – bought them at a discount after working on a show with the label. The idea we came up with together was a representation of diversity and it was very successful.

And the best gift I’ve ever received. Lumio is a book-shaped portable lamp from the MoMA store, which was given to me by my studio director, Giulia. Look, I am someone who as soon as I like something, I buy it. So it’s hard to buy a gift for me. But Giulia did it.

The last music I bought was by R&B project Rhye – I love how expressive the music is.

I have a collection Memories of my travels. I don’t collect anything because it connects me with the past. I was once at Kennedy Airport and asked the staff how many times I had flown with Delta. They told me that I had crossed the Atlantic 700 times!

In my fridge you will always find pomegranate juice – does not have a lot of sugar and is different from soft drinks. Parmesan, which I really like. Lentil soup. I can tell you that I have never touched meat in my life. Growing up in my house, they made a menu for other people and a special menu for me. I refuse to eat meat, but when I’m in Italy I eat fish, it’s the best fish in the world.

I have recently discovered a hotel called Villa Fiorella on the Amalfi coast that I really like, in a little place called Massa Lubrense. I would like to go back there.

In another life it would have been a pianist is a complete instrument. My mother taught me to play the piano but my life took me away from it.

An indulgence I would never give up it’s muffins. When he lived in France, he developed a taste for them and since then, every morning for breakfast, he had a muffin with a coffee. Because when you dip it into coffee, it tastes fantastic.

What I couldn’t do without is Antonucci Cafe In New York. For 20 years I have been going to this restaurant, three or four times a week. It is one of the few things that I repeat with pleasure. It’s a restaurant where you don’t need a menu, they make the food I want to eat. It is as if I have found my culinary taste: the kitchen is from Venice, close to where I grew up. Sometimes I just have the soup with some mozzarella, a very simple meal.

An object that I would never part with. It is the first small model of my Chair UP5_6, which I did 54 years ago. I am very proud of the article, as it said something politically important about women’s freedom; maybe not enough, but more than we used to say at the time. I make models for my designs in my house and if it is interesting I take it to the workshop. So my house is full of ideas and prototypes.

The only artist whose work I would collect if I could is Piero Manzoni, precursor of the arte povera movement. He was very conceptual, a very intelligent artist. We had an exchange of letters; We talked about working on a well-rounded theater project. I admire an artist whose personality is in contradiction with themselves.

My favorite room in my house. it’s my living room, where I go to think about the projects I’m working on. My house is on the river, so the living room has lots of windows facing the East River in Manhattan. I have always lived near water. Water is always in motion, it’s always changing with the light, so it gave me the idea that my life shouldn’t be static, I have to move like water. Our time is liquid.

my favorite building is he Guggenheim museum. Other than that, I often say that there is no architecture in Manhattan. More than 60 years have passed since it was built, but it is still very innovative. It is an example of what architecture should be.

my favorite app it’s Spotify. I listen to music all the time. Through the computer, the algorithm keeps sending me music, I enjoy it very much.

The works of art that changed everything for me They were by Marcel Duchamp. His porcelain urinal, FountainExposed in 1917 in Paris, it was for me the first time that someone expressed the idea that an industrial object can also be a work of art.

The best advice I’ve ever received was to stay curious. It’s in my nature. It’s the advice I gave my daughter, Fontessa: keep your eyes open.

Gaetano Pesce: The Complete Incoherence by Glenn Adamson, published by Monacelli Press, comes out June 28