6:00 A.M. I used to always get up at 5 A.M., but now I force myself to stay in bed until 6. I live in Solomeo, a 14th-century hamlet in Umbria, where my company is also headquartered. My house is in the historic center of the village, with a large park and woods around it. The way it is, I get to live downtown and have woods to protect my privacy. From my bedroom window I see all the countryside surrounding the whole area. When we go on holiday, my wife, Federica, likes to go to the beach, but after two or three days I get bored because I really miss the hills. I was born and bred surrounded by hills, so I miss them when I am away. Since I was born in the countryside in a family of farmers, I attach a lot of value to the silence. The only noise you hear is the wind blowing or the rain falling. At 12 or 13 years of age, I came up with the idea of becoming a monk. That's how much I love silence.
6:15 A.M. Before I turned 45, I would spend half an hour a day working out. Then, between 45 and, let's say, 50, I started working out for an hour and a half a day. Now that I'm 63, I've gone up to two hours because I want to stay fit. I start with an hour of swimming every morning; I'm lucky enough to have my own pool. After swimming I do about 20 minutes of a series of exercises called the Five Tibetan Rites, which is an ancient form of yoga, and at the end of the day I'll play football or tennis or go running to get up to my two hours. I believe that there are three things in life that you must absolutely do yourself because nobody can do it in your place: keeping fit, following a diet, and accumulating culture.
7:45 A.M. Getting dressed is both an easy and a complicated process. For example, this morning it somehow took me four times to tie my tie. While I get dressed, I tend to talk to myself. I think a little bit on how to organize the day, or maybe I take a look in the mirror and think, Oh, my God, I've put on weight!, or notice some extra white hair that was not there the day before. Afterward I have a very Italian breakfast of milk, coffee, and toasted bread with jam. Sometimes if I don't have breakfast at home, I might stroll down to the village bar, where I get a cappuccino and a brioche or a croissant. That's the best breakfast.
8:30 A.M. It takes me two minutes to walk to our company headquarters. Everybody turns up at 8 A.M., although there's no obligation to clock in. I usually turn up between 8:15 and 8:30 because the morning hours are the most productive for me. Seventy percent of my time, any time of the year, is devoted to designing the collection. The remaining 30 percent is devoted to all the other aspects of the company: production, finance, customers. This is the usual breakdown of my day.
1:00 P.M. We take our lunch very seriously, especially here in central Italy. Everybody stops working, and about 700 employees, at least, go to the company's canteen. Typically the lunch break is about an hour and a half. I go home, which is essential to me. Another essential thing is to eat pasta every single lunch. If I had to pick a favorite kind, it would be spaghetti with olive oil or tomato sauce. Or maybe rigatoni.
2:00 P.M. Another important thing I do every day after lunch is to take a half-hour nap, a so-called siesta. This is a tradition I have had since I was young. It's typical of the farming culture. When I was growing up, all my family would have a rest after lunch because they had gotten up very early to feed the cattle.
2:30 P.M. The afternoon is devoted to more routine work. I make all of my important decisions in the morning. In the afternoon, I'll take a look at something, sleep on it, and make the decision the next morning. When I have to choose a color for the collection, the decision is always made in the morning. Usually there are not many people in my office, if not to say none at all, because if I need someone I tend to go to them. If cashmere is being washed, I go to the laundry, or if I need to discuss finance, I'll go to the chief financial officer's office. It is somehow a way to reward the work of my employees. The fact that I go to them myself is a way of stressing the dignity of their work.
5:30 P.M. The whole company stops work at half past five, so you have the whole late afternoon to yourself. I've always wanted for myself and my employees to work fair hours. Nobody can be online or receive e-mails after 5:30 P.M., when we shut down for the day. Generally speaking, we as a society work too much, and we all need to find the right balance, the right breakdown of our day in order to have time to dedicate to ourselves. I always follow the rules of Saint Benedict, who said you should look out for your mindful studies, your soulful praying, and, then, lastly, work.
8:00 P.M. I try to have a very light supper—but not because I'm not hungry. If it were up to me, I would eat the whole table. I follow the Benedictine rule to not eat in the evening. Monks used to do it to be fitter, and I've been doing this since I was really young. A light dinner is about 30 percent of a usual meal size, so I might just nibble some ham or mozzarella. After dinner I head down to the café to see my friends. I am usually the last one to say goodbye. I enjoy discussing philosophy, politics, economics, and religion until the very late hours, even when only two or three people are left in the bar. It could be 1 to 2 A.M., because I try to keep my friends there and keep discussing things for a long time.
8:30 P.M. When I don't go out, which usually happens in the winter when it's cold outside, I like to spend time in front of the fireplace, and I might end up reading or meditating for two hours. Sometimes I smoke a cigar, but not too often; otherwise my wife complains about the smell. I like to sit on the couch, surrounded by all of my books. I have 5,000 books in my home, 1,000 of which I feel are close to my heart. They have always shown me the way. Books are my great passion; I could not live without them. If I were to pick a couple out of the 1,000, I would choose Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. That really showed me the way ahead, as has Plato's Symposium, which is a dialogue on love that was written in the fourth century B.C. in Athens. When my older daughter got married, I gave her my 1,000 favorite books, and I've prepared the same thing for my younger daughter. And now I am preparing 1,000 books for my granddaughter.
This article originally appeared in the October 2016 issue of Harper's BAZAAR.
