In 1968, my parents, Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, started building a factory just outside the village of Sumirago, 35 miles from Milan. Their textiles company had become internationally known and they needed to expand. One day, they took us to a wood on top of a hill and said it was where they were going to have their new buildings.

It was a bit abstract for me at 13 — it was just chestnut trees, oaks and fields — but when the factory was built, I was fascinated. I spent my first summer there going in with the workers at 7am and helping out, counting yarns in the warehouse and packing boxes.

When I was 16, my parents built a new home next to the factory. Their intention, from the beginning, was to work in a place where they would also love to live. It is a beautiful environment, with hills and big lakes. Switzerland is only 15 miles away, and my mother loved being able to see the Monte Rosa mountains.

Every possible moment, I was there with the carpenters. The house was an extended single-storey villa, painted white, like a ranch house. When you arrived, you saw the big overhanging roof with classic terracotta tiles. I remember my parents arguing with the architect because he’d built small windows. He thought it was more stylish, but my mother had huge windows put in so there was a lot of light and she could see the garden.

The first summer, I organised a kind of Olympic Games for our friends — we named it a “contemporary decathlon”. The most fun was the high jump, where we used a trampoline to jump over an elastic thread before landing in the pool. My father had competed in the 400m hurdles at the 1948 Olympics and was always training.

We — my older brother, Vittorio, and my younger sister, Angela — all had our own rooms. You could do what you wanted; it was like having your own mini-apartment. I built my own furniture. As I’ve always liked aeroplanes, I did a lot of model-making; my desk was like a little workshop, with paints, glues and sandpaper. There was always a smell of varnish.

I lived there for a good 10 years. It was a grand lifestyle in a way, because we had beautiful gardens and a swimming pool. There was a small creek where we cultivated crayfish; we built a chicken coop and kept pigs and rabbits. My mother liked having a vegetable garden and animals to eat. Even today, when my daughter visits, my mother takes her to collect eggs.

My parents decorated the house with colourful Missoni things they made themselves. So my father brought in his own paintings, big wall hangings and carpets made of patchwork. My mother used jerseys and knitwear to cover the couches, and pieces she picked up in flea markets across Europe. Visitors to the house were always interesting: artists, photographers, writers and designers all came.

We were privileged — our parents had a modern, open-minded view of life. The way we were dressed was unconventional; we went to school in jersey pants and wore the first jeans that were around, and patchwork sweaters. We were seen as cool.

The factory was only 100 metres away, so, after I did my homework, I began going on the floor with the nightshift, who taught me how the machines worked. I built a telescope on the factory roof with the chief mechanic and wandered through the sky, trying to photograph deep-space objects.

I moved to Milan in 1975, and lived in the basement of the Missoni showroom, among the clothes. I started going to university in Milan to study engineering, but I only stayed a year. Instead, I learnt to fly and helped at the photographic studio of a friend, Alfa Castaldi.

I started working at the Missoni factory full-time when I was 21, designing knitwear and experimenting with the machinery. Then, when I was 27, I married and moved to my own home in the village. In Italy, you don’t usually leave home until you get married. Mothers spoil you rotten.

I met my wife, Judy, in Sumirago. She came to work at Missoni as a model, but she was different from the usual breed — a dancer as well, and more into the arts. The house is still the same, but it evolves as my parents bring in new items. I spend half my time there at the factory, but my mother is always saying: “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you.” And my father is still training. He’s 88, and now he does shot put and javelin. There’s always 2012.

Workshop Missoni: Daring to Be Different is at the Estorick Collection, London N1, until September 20

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