Issue #79
Cristiano Paniconi
Il Sognatore
My name is Cristiano, I am 38 and I was born in the region of Marche. I left my family at the age of 22 to move to Milan where I started my fashion career which at that time was my dream. I am a very outgoing person with a passion of life. I am a people oriented person and I consider myself very passionate.
I have been working for many years in Luxury Retail for brands such as Hermes and Loro Piana, who is my current employer. During my time off I love surfing, being outdoor and enjoy nature. This is why I ended up living in Hawaii after spending 6 amazing years in NYC.
Since I was living in Milan and working in fashion I always dreamt about living in NYC one day. I always watched movies based in New York, reading books about the big apple. After 4 years in Milan I decided to move to London to learn in english and work for the same company. Then I had an offer for a higher position and I returned back to Milan. But since then everything looked small and people so closed minded. After few more years back in Milan I decided that this city was way to small for me. So I quit my job packed my 2 suitcases and I started chasing my american dream. I thought NYC would have been easiest for an european to make it happen comparing to other cities in the States.
I have many memories in these 6 years in the Big Apple. My first working permit, the green card, the first good job, the amazing people I met, the energy that NYC has, the night life, the freezing winters, the craziness, riding the subway trains and I thing the best is being part of NYC surfing community. Yes because NYC changed my life. I started surfing in Long Island one winter and since then it became an addiction. I started meeting city surfers, go out, taking trips together. The last 2 years in the city I gave up night life for surfing.
At the beginning surfing in the arctic waters of NYC was awesome, something that I never experienced, then after I started traveling to central america for surfing I slowly decided to move to a tropical destination. The problem was to find that location where I could combine my job and the surfing. After a while I found out that my company Loro Piana, was about to open a new boutique in Honolulu and, without even visiting before, I just decided to move and live my tropical lifestyle dream.
I think is an amazing project who can probably inspire millions of italians like me, to have the courage of leaving Italy and make their dream comes true. Especially now that the economy situation in our country is a bit in recession.
It is simply amazing. I really understood how like I am to be an italian. Wherever I go when people ask me where I am from their eyes shine. Our culture, food etc. it is the best in the world. Being italian makes it easier to find jobs, women! It is just makes me so proud of it. Unfortunately we only realized how like we are only when we move abroad!
