I am the third-generation designer of my family's business — a shop that makes women's clothes to order.

I grew up running around this shop.
People now call it a declining industry, but to me it is the place where my life began, and I love it.

The second floor of our shop was a workroom.
Up there was a small room that was both the artisans' break room and my playroom.
My mother and grandmother were almost always downstairs with customers,
so whenever I picture my childhood, I see that little room.

I had plenty of toys, but I much preferred sneaking off with the grown-ups' sewing tools.
The marks I scratched into the cutting table with a tracing wheel are still there today.
Sometimes, when they were cutting a lining, someone would say, "Hold the end for me."

The rip of fabric being torn, the clatter of the sewing machine, the hiss of the steam iron —
these are the warm sounds of my childhood.

Surrounded by the same sounds today, I work with my team on clothes that become part of someone's life.