Hi Adriana! You landed in the Big Apple when you were 38 years old with your adolescent twins. How did you spend your first years there?
For sure it was no easy life especially in the first year, we neither had friends nor could speak English at all: we started in working in restaurants, then I managed to open an International Brokerage Firm, that lasted almost nine years. After a seven-months period in San Francisco, I came back to New York City and I started over again: I worked as a coat check in an Italian Restaurant, and in the meanwhile I began to cultivate my passion. Little by little what had once been only a hobby came to be my job.
How would you like to be defined today?
I define myself as an all-round artisan, I love to diversify, from clothing to accessories…
Regarding this I’ve heard that you had been Cindy Lauper’s stylist in the 2000s.
Yes, for several years I cured her personal and staging clothing, making all the possible refinements. She is a wonderful woman… Italian by mother!
Excuse me for interrupting you, you were saying you like diversifying…
That’s true, but my main job, the one that I do for a living is in Interiors Decorating, that means to re-upholster pieces of furniture or even to “bring them back to life”.
Certainly, it requires a consolidated craftiness, together with a great imagination, but also a considerable organizational ability. How can you manage both work and housekeeping?
It’s difficult to manage everything, I work in my studio-basement, still I do what I like and this allows me to carry on…
Who are your clients?
I have a diverse and distinguished clientele. I manage to build good relationships, that’s important to me, as a matter of fact they always come back with new projects.
I believe that you also need a bit of psychological insight in your work.
Yes, it’s true, it may occur that you have to meet the needs of demanding clients, that’s when you necessitate to use psychology: I try to make them imagine my finished pieces through my eyes, I’ve always satisfied all of them.
Speaking of feeling, any nostalgia for Italy? Would you come back and work here?
I particularly miss my friends and the land of Toscana, in fact I hope one day to be back and continue there my job as an artisan… of course!
