“If one had to look at my textbooks when I was about five, they were always full of drawings. I never used to pay attention in class,” admits Joe Grima, whom everyone knows simply as Mugi.

We are at the elegantly decorated Cafe Juliani situated right in the heart of Spinola Bay. The wide sliding doors entice you to come into the cafe where rattan armchairs are set off by the turquoise standing lamps. The glass top tables and chrome chairs give the place a sleek modern feel. It is a fitting place to interview someone who has such an eye for aesthetics.

When I ask where he’s from, Mugi demonstrates his typical frankness.

“From Sliema, but originally I don’t know because I’m adopted. My parents told me at the age of four, ‘you’re special, you’re adopted, tell your friends that’. So I used to tell them but I never knew what it meant!” he laughs at the absurdity of it.

He has never searched for his natural parents in order not to hurt his mother and father, whom he obviously adores.

“To this day my mother brings me sandwiches every morning to my house to fatten me up. She’s so sweet.”

Mugi’s interest in fashion started at a young age. His mother used to sew clothes for her friends, and he would pick up the scraps to make his dolls’ wardrobe.

“I suppose I was either going to become a hairdresser or a fashion designer,” he adds.

Although he signed up for a five year dressmaking course, he felt that he was wasting his time and walked out halfway through.

“I found it boring; stuff I knew already. So everything I know is self-taught. My father hated the fact that I even touched a pair of scissors because he wanted me to study. In those days, it wasn’t very accepted for men to do that kind of job, and my Dad wanted me to become either a lawyer, a doctor or a manager. But I wasn’t interested. My mother understood me more and when she realised that that’s what I wanted to do, she helped me. I’d wake up in the morning and find that she had taken apart a sleeve I’d sewn because I hadn’t done it properly, and she’d tell me, ‘do it again’. She encouraged me...without telling my Dad.”

His next step was to open his own boutique La Vergogna. He got his way after a big argument at home.

“I threw a tantrum telling them that either my father gives me some money for the shop or I’m leaving the island. Spoiled little so and so, wasn’t I?” he laughs at himself.

He left home in a huff and they weren’t on speaking terms until his father agreed to help out. The name of the shop came about from the story of Adam and Eve and the shame they felt when they realised they were naked.

“After all, that was how the first clothing came about wasn’t it? Unfortunately I had Italian tourists walking by who used to think it was a sex shop...” he says as an afterthought

His ironic one-liners are so good he could be a comedian.

Unfortunately, while Mugi excels in creativity, he is not business-minded at all. “The shop only lasted a year. Dizastru. If I made Lm10 during the day, I’d go out and spend Lm20 in the evening. Then I’d say ‘Ma, can you help pay my rent?’ I’m sure I would have been very rich by now, but I’m very bad at the business side of things. I calculate my prices by using a set price by the hour. Of course, sometimes you estimate wrongly because it might take you longer than you think. But once I’ve agreed on a price I don’t like to go back on it.”

His favourite type of dressmaking has to be couture, although he also enjoys sewing wedding gowns.

“I get just as excited as the bride does,” he confesses. “I always end up going to their wedding and crying, always! I’m very sensitive, it’s like I’m getting married myself. However, couture is very elegant; that is more my style and that is how I started my career.”

The demand in Malta for high fashion is small so he turned to other jobs to pay the bills. Apart from anything else, to look its best, alta moda requires wafer-thin, six foot tall models, “and you don’t find many of those,” he points out dryly.

The nickname “Mugi” is from a French fashion designer whom he greatly admires, Terry Mugler. People have always called him Mugi so it was the obvious choice when it came to choosing a label.

It’s a good thing he did. His real name would have him confused with quite a few prominent people.

The turning point for Mugi came with his first fashion show at the Dragonara Casino in 2000. No less than the Italian showgirl Valeria Marini was present which turned it into a high profile event, and Mugi duly benefited from the publicity.

Mugi’s next move was Holland.

“I went on a holiday for ten days and came back four years later! You’re young and Holland is one of those freaky places. I worked behind bars, made clothes for a few drag queens, and survived by bumming basically. Being small I could stay by the bar and take drinks while no one was looking. I was quite rebellious and going to a land where everything was possible coming from a little tiny island where nothing is possible...”

He leaves the sentence dangling with no need for further explanation.

He came back only because his sister was getting married. On his return, his life changed overnight. The health of his father, who was suffering from MS, had deteriorated drastically. When Mug last saw him he was using a walking stick, now he was bedridden. It was the change in his mother, however, which most shocked him.

“She was always very sexy and slim, very well-groomed, but looking after my father she had to let go of her looks and her figure. She went through a few years of hell, and seeing that I really had to think twice about what I was doing with my life. I told myself, ‘Joe, you’ve had your fun, now it’s time to do something.’ I was 29, so it was about time.”

A year later his father died and Mugi fell into a deep depression, refusing to go out. He was suffering from enormous guilt because he and his father had not been on good terms.

“We were two very proud people, never seeing eye to eye, and always in competition somehow, I don’t know why. He gave me a good education, sent me to good schools. He used to buy me two sets of textbooks every year so I wouldn’t have to carry books to school! How much sweeter can you get? He was a great Dad. He fell into a coma on Christmas Day and died on 3 January and I didn’t have time to say anything to him.”

After six months of what he calls his “guilt trip”, he had a phone call from Claudette Pace who had been impressed by his sister’s wedding dress. “She asked me to be on her programme Sellili. Although I told her I was in no shape to be on TV, she talked me into it and the next thing I knew my face was on television. Things started picking up from there. I suppose Dad was helping me.”

TV made him a household name and local celebrities began to flock to him for special occasions. When it was Claudette’s turn to be married, she turned to Mugi herself.

“I remember watching Graziella Attard Previ when I was eight on TV and thinking, ‘I wish I could dress her’. So dressing local celebrities is my dream come true. Of course luck plays a big part, you have to be at the right place at the right time.”After his “wild youth”, he is happily settled now in Malta.

“It’s strange, I don’t complain any more whereas six, seven years ago when I was less wise, with other priorities, I complained that there’s never anything to do here and nowhere to go. Now I don’t really mind it. Of course my social life has changed as well, before it was party, party, party and staying out late, now it’s more going to a restaurant for a quiet evening or to a friend’s to watch a DVD.”

Hearing talk about “when he was young” might make you do a double take, because Mugi could easily pass for a twenty-something. In fact, he is 36. He is not the only one who has changed – Malta has changed too, he readily agrees.

“Take the fact that I’m homosexual. When I was younger I used to walk in the street and from here to Paparazzi, five people would call me pufta (the derogatory Maltese word for ‘gay’). Nowadays, nothing. And if someone had to do a vox pop and ask people what they thought of homosexuals I don’t think anyone would care. It’s not an issue any more; people have become very accepting.”

It also has a lot to do with how much someone accepts themselves. I point out that he is one of the few people who has talked openly to me (and on the record) about their sexuality.

“I never really had a problem with accepting myself,” he says after reflecting on it for a minute. “I cannot recall a moment when I thought ‘this is wrong’. I told my family at the age of 16 and they were very supportive. My mother was taken aback initially, but my father just sat me down and said ‘OK’. To be honest, I thought it would be the other way around. He told me ‘so instead of bringing home a girlfriend you’ll be bringing home a boyfriend, big deal. You’re still my son and I will love you anyway’. Whereas my mother was saying ‘I have to speak to the priest, I have to speak to a psychiatrist’. The psychiatrist simply told her ‘you’re the one with the problem, you’re just going to have to accept it.’ Then she was OK.”

Mugi realises that compared to other people he was extremely lucky. He remembers his father phoning up members of his family on the night he ‘came out’, telling them that if they had anything to say, he didn’t want to hear about it behind his back, they should say it directly to him.

There’s a good lesson for parents of gay children.

Still, I had to ask how he handled the ignorant insults in the street at such a young age. Typically, Mugi just smiles his relaxed smile and shrugs, “If they called me pufta I’d say, ‘OK, don’t remind me’ or ‘it takes one to know one’. I used to answer back, turning it into a joke. You have to rise above it. Of course when I was at school, it was hard. From the age of 12 people were calling me gay at school and it used to hurt a little bit. But then I thought to myself, ‘well, it’s true!’ I remember one instance in Form 3 a boy asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said a fashion designer, and he said, ‘ajma, gays and sissies do that kind of work’. I replied, ‘yes, OK’. A few years later he came to my shop with his girlfriend and he was working at some tacky job. He told me, ‘oh I see you made it’. I said ‘yes, but this shop is only for women or people like me so you’ll have to wait outside’. In other words, I made it and you didn’t.”

Ouch, so the sweet smile hides a sharp tongue. Mugi definitely knows how to hit back, politely but firmly. “I’m not a nasty person, but when people try to hurt me I won’t let it go; I’ll hit them back with their own medicine.”

Our lunch arrives. I had ordered the chicken Caesar salad and Mugi chose the beef wrap with shredded spring onion.

He tells me he finds it impossible to put on weight. Life is not fair.

Mugi’s personal life is temporarily on hold. “I’m too obsessed with my work. I was in a relationship for three years but the person finally told me, ‘look, all you do is talk about your work, it’s me, me, me’. I am a bit self-centred; my work is my relationship at the moment.”

As for fashion shows, his philosophy is to produce only the occasional one, but do it well.“I’d rather hold one every three years and come out with a big bang. I like to produce a fashion show people won’t stop talking about – big lights, big speakers, 50 models, that sort of thing. What I look for in a model is natural beauty and the ability to carry clothes. They also must have style of their own. You see a beautiful hamalla (a coarse girl) walking down the road, I see many. They just don’t know how to carry themselves though,” he sighs with obvious regret.

What is the most common mistake women make?

“People tend to think that skin-tight clothes make them look smaller, when actually they make them look bigger because they’re showing what is underneath. Even skinny models don’t wear tight, tight clothes, they always have a one centimetre leeway for comfort. It’s the Maltese who like to lie on their beds with their legs in the air to try and put their jeans on. The best thing is to wear really nice, loose clothes, shaped but not fitted.”His good taste clearly comes from his mother. Now that she has recovered from the trauma of his father’s illness and death, she has pulled herself together and is once again very elegant and stylish.

“She’s very into chiffon scarves, silk, pure cashmere or wool. She would never buy anything fake. Good taste lies within you, and it doesn’t have to do with money as such. I had very little money at one point but I used to decorate my house with nothing, very simple things, but always tastefully.”

Mugi’s good taste and creativity has also got him noticed at an international level. He will be representing Malta at Berlin’s upcoming fashion festival which is celebrating the ten new countries that have joined the EU.

Why do you think you were chosen?

“I really have no idea. I received a call from the Ministry of Culture & Arts and they asked me to submit my name. The Germans told me that my website was the simplest and the most low key. Very clean, very plain, just four pictures, easy text – I wasn’t trying to impress, I just sent the best I had.”

In preparation for the festival, he has been asked to make 20 original outfits. This will be haute couture at its best, the whole purpose being to show off each designer’s imagination and creativity. “I do panic sometimes, but that means I always finish what I have to finish. I work very well under pressure, then I can relax. I’ve never given a dress to a client on the day of the wedding, for example, it’s always ready a week before.”

I ask Mugi about his dreams.

“Where do I see myself one day? I see myself working for the stars, yes. It might sound really huge and unreachable but that’s my dream. I’d like to see a few of my dresses going to the Oscars.”

Did you ever think you’d make it this far?“No. I thought I’d be working at Paparazzi for the rest of my life.”