Armani's holiday home in Pantelleria is designed by architect Gabriella Giuntoli

Giorgio Armani is full of surprises. As the man behind - and at the helm of - one of the biggest fashion houses in the world, one might expect his pied-à-terre, his vacation home, to be in any number of exotic locations.

Rather than building himself a mini-resort in Mauritius or a party pad in Boracay, he cast his sights southwest off the Tunisian coast, onto a volcanic, somewhat forbidding, island named Pantelleria.

Armani first visited the rocky island more than 30 years ago. "Believe it or not, I didn't like it," he admits. "I expected it to be more exotic, not so hard. There were no nice hotels, no restaurants, no life. The greatest excitement of the day was if a car passed by on the road."

After a few days, however, the fashion designer felt something shift, as he settled into a stillness in which he, perhaps unexpectedly, found a certain beauty. "I suddenly looked up into that clear sky and everything was just so quiet and calm. A pure silence," he recalls.

That changed everything. Armani bought a house on the island in 1981, before returning a few years later to buy another piece of land closer to the water. While the sea provided stunning views and a calming presence, the designer says that, strangely enough, it wasn't his priority.

"It's the whole island, the light, and the coarse wild terrain," he explains. "It's being surrounded by the black volcanic rock that is humbling and so strong. I need a force this strong to make me relax."

The designer compares this place to his home in Milan, where he spends much of his working life. "They are two completely different realities and functions," he says. "[The Milan home] is modern, functional and linear - in line with the fact that I am working. Pantelleria is my summer refuge … the only place where I truly feel I can 'turn off' from the wear and tear of working life."

As a result, now, Armani finds himself visiting his holiday home not just in the summer, as he did over the first few years, but also for long weekends in the autumn and spring.

Of course, the island has also become a lot more liveable over the years. "Now Pantelleria has electricity, there are a few hotels, and cars passing on the road are no longer the big attraction," Armani jokes. Nevertheless, he says, it maintains that untouched wildness and beauty.

It is for this reason that the designer hired Gabriella Giuntoli to be his architect. As a local, she understood the nature and surroundings, and Armani particularly appreciated her "innate ability to comprehend someone's taste and needs, transforming these ideas into a reality that is simple, natural and ultimately luxurious".