The Two Little Italians: Fendi & Cristo

Everyone who works with me eventually learns that the studio has two creative directors I answer to, and neither of them is human.

They came from Italy — each from a separate bloodline of champions, which they have never once let me forget. I have spent my life around beautiful things: ateliers, runways, trade-show floors at midnight before an opening. Nothing I have ever produced carries itself with the certainty of these two.

Fendi Lucritizia Florentino Coco

The apricot. Named for two fashion houses and a Florentine mood, because anything less would have been inaccurate. Fendi wears sunglasses the way other dogs wear collars — as if she had simply been waiting for us to catch up to the idea. She has a pink bow for mornings, a buffalo-sized stuffed toy she has claimed as furniture, and an editorial eye: when a design is wrong she leaves the room, and she is never wrong.

Cristo Maximus Lou Anzo de Medici

The black. A name with a Medici flourish and a temperament to match. Cristo is solemn, watchful, and philosophical about everything except sticks, over which he claims absolute sovereign right — every stick in Miami Beach, by decree. Where Fendi performs, Cristo presides. He sits at the edge of whatever is happening like a small dark chancellor, waiting to be consulted.

What they teach me

I call animals my little children — angels sent to keep us happy. But the truth is they run a masterclass I keep paying tuition for:

Fendi teaches that style is conviction. She has no idea the sunglasses are funny. That is exactly why they work.

Cristo teaches that presence beats volume. He has never once raised his voice and he has never once been ignored.

And together they teach the lesson underneath everything I design: beauty and kindness are the same discipline. You cannot make anything truly beautiful carelessly — not a garment, not a brand, not a life shared with two small Italians who own you completely.