The flame appears amidst the wrinkled cobalt nave. The red stuccos pale at the sight of the Moon so fair. The wind blows under the bridges, roars from heart to yard ; it lifts the velvet mantles, it breaks the silver masks. The Doge’s banner looks after the city aslept whilst in silence are brewing the potions of alchemists. A river like a monster ; turquoise tentacles intertwined under the canal ; oh skies of clouds ; oh cottonlike night ; oh terrible, oh fragrant Serenissima like a velvet purple rain, oh fire and flame ! She moans, she moves, the Pearl of the Adriatic and watches over the silhouettes looming in the shadows.
Clouds rush over the powdery rooftops, red ! Out of the basilica where demons are silenced hurries a man — he swings, swings on the shiny cobblestones. His hand wears no glove, it emerges, emerges from beneath his heavy indigo sleeve. It heavies, heavies under the weight of rubies and jewels mighty. Pale nails and rosy skin, the racey profile of Aquilea’s Patriarch — the intriguing flies through the great door, through silences he spires and conspires a veil of ambergris.
Flies by the narrow streets, down the arcades of covered alleys through an iron gate, austere, guarding white jasmin grove of flowers waxy and grandiose. He is followed, he blends in the blossoms non opened, multicoloured gems on emerald branches mounted. Smears of lipstick, a memory of sweltering nights – the Patriarch flees in silence. His powder cracks on his face, shreds of glory, testaments of shame – he flees the mirrors, the glances, his face.
He drags a silky and golden sillage ; the delicate fragrance of starched corporals, the indecent opulence of perfumed conopies, the thuribles and their smoke, the flowered tabernacles and the candles of white wax ; the freshness of candle-bearers, of acolytes and thuribulers he drags ; the perfect fifth of gregorian harmonies ; the reflection of mosaics on shadowed arcades, he drags, like a ball, his daily life whilst he tries to join, in secret, his lover.
Venetian Red has the colour of a Venetian night from the warmth of its walls to the grey of its skies. Opulence is its name bearing in its accords the richness of a Byzantine past, giving a whiff of a forgotten Venice, the adventurous Republic wearing the rags of a Principality. Red like the cinnabar rosying one’s lips and cheeks, evoking non so much the ladies than the men of the Renaissance, the pontiffs collapsing under their tiaras, entangled in their fake dignities yet carrying the weight of a realm.
Rich and explosive, an olfactory bomb where mingles the smell of lipstick with that of seaspray, Venetian Red is a treasure one applies on one’s skin not without Biblical fear.
The juice is thick and dark, of a darkness unseen in rums, unseen in wines, unseen in perfumes. It smells like nothing else but rather like an ancient perfume. It is time itself that you apply on your skin, a pomander ; the streets of Rome in summer dark with the scent of musk and incense ; the Vatican of Borgias’ rule, the red of cardinals and their ugly vices, the Church and its riches – fortresses.
A truly unique gem of a perfume unlike anything we have smelt before. A daring creation, asserting itself like the rest of the line created by Anna Zworykina. Intense and divisive, it is worn like a ruby necklace. A perfume heavy, a perfume one wears preciously on the neck. A perfume rare and well-done.
The small format does not sully the experience, rather it makes it even better in underlining how rare are its sillage and power and potency. Greasy and animal purple, Venetian Red is the red of the Fenice and its powders, of its ladies dying under their velvet skirts and the gold and the lights and the damp air of summer.
Undescribable experience one must live, by the mystically sensual dreams it convokes and the pump it conjures, Venetian Red has become our favourite amongst Anna Zworykina’s personal and peculiar line. Its remarkable longevity cannot be forgotten. It stays in one’s beard, it clings to one’s neck and seals the pores of your skin.
An animalistic mother’s kiss.
Venetian Red and its compelling contrasts. If they can baffle they can most of all sway…
Your heart.
A midnight moon,
In Venice.
Red.
