Perfumeries usually exert a magical attraction on me. Especially if they are as big and luxurious as the often two-storey perfume palaces in Vienna's inner city. Whenever it arises and I pass one of these glamorous perfumeries during a shopping tour in the city, I am usually drawn to it and I like to look around there.
However, I am not only an "olfactory" type, but also an eye person. It must have been 2011 or 2012 when the newly designed fragrance was so heavily promoted everywhere. I remember exactly how I suddenly stood, completely fascinated, in front of this small, bizarre work of art made of glass, which - presented in such a way that it could not be missed - stood on its own table in the middle of the shop.
It's quite striking, this bulbous bottle with the two-story tower-like structure as its cap. The whole thing was called Venezia. A name that alone is capable of giving wings to the imagination. What goes through your mind when you think of Venice. Venice is one of my favourite cities. I have that in common with Richard Wagner. I have visited it several times and even spent two seaside holidays at the Lido. Venice - that is the lagoon with its islands. On one of them I bought a beautiful Murano glass mirror decorated with pale pink flowers, which still adorns my dressing table today. Venice - that is the carnival with its mostly rigid, pale, mysterious masks, which this year, like so many other things, fell victim to the corona virus. Venice is also the Doge's Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, the Bell Tower with its Moors, San Marco, La Fenice, the gondolas, the canals and bridges, the palazzi with their morbid charm, Santa Maria Della Salute, San Michele, the Cemetery Island, on which the buried bodies are dug up and piled up after a few years due to lack of space, but also the gigantic cruise liners, which disfigure the scenery and damage the already damaged building fabric.
Some of you may have very personal memories of the Serenissima. Like me. Unfortunately, not everyone is happy.
My last visit to Venice, for example, had a sad occasion. My parents had taken a trip to Venice for their 50th wedding anniversary. A photo shows them happily in a gondola. In the evening of that day, a Holy Saturday, my father went for a walk alone on the evening beach of the Lido. From this he should not return. Carabinieri find him dead, without injuries, fully clothed, lying in the sand. None of his belongings are missing, neither money nor passport - only a small silver pocket knife, which he had always carried with him for decades. How, what and why he died so unexpectedly back then has remained his secret. One spoke of a heart attack or a stroke. I had gone to my mother in the night to help her in these difficult hours and bring her back to Vienna. The coffin with my father followed a few days later.
Today, I can hardly understand what made me buy Venezia, the perfume, back then. The name, the interesting bottle, or at least the initially so ingratiating scent of EdP?
Of course I tested it before I decided to take it with me. Later I noticed that the fragrance has its strongest moments in the early stages. That's when it is pleasant, maybe even surprisingly fruity. Soon the sweetness of jasmine, rose and ylang-ylang is added. For a few seconds, you are totally thrilled. And these seconds are enough to decide to buy it. You think: Wow, what a scent firework! What else might come when it becomes powdery. But like real fireworks, the fascination of this fragrance flashes up only once for a short time - and disappears all too soon. What a pity!
I don't know the vintage scent from 1992, which also bears the name of the lagoon city. Therefore the encounter with Venezia 0.2 was completely unbiased from my side.
The bottle already shows what could be awaiting you in terms of fragrance: Venice, a city marked by Byzantine culture. That means mosaics, lots of gold and oriental-looking buildings. How Laura Biagiotti wants to wrap all this up in a fragrance? A charming thought.
I imagine the perfume oriental, noble, precious, sweet, spicy, with exotic flowers, woods and lots of vanilla. Whether the reality is compatible with my imagination?
The first impression: The fragrance is unexpectedly light and fruity. You could say modern. The fruits are well chosen for an autumn scent that I find it to be. The plum doesn't come to you fresh, but dried. At least that's how it seems to me. Blackcurrant joins in and a touch of peach. The sweetness is pleasantly delicate. The fruity top note is accompanied by floral. Jasmine, ylang-ylang and rose lend the fragrance a touch of the Orient. Osmanthus completes the exotic aroma. Despite this abundance of fragrances, the fragrance - an EdP after all - remains extremely discreet. This does not change when amber, vanilla and sandalwood come into play and round off the fragrance.
Overall, the fragrance is warm, spicy, sweet and powdery. The Orient is restrained here and by no means obtrusive. It is a soft, velvety, gentle fragrance that is also well suited for everyday use.
The Venice that is shown here is "tamed", a Venice without tourists. A bit melancholic perhaps, but not passionate. Nor boisterous and cheerful.
La Serenissima also means calm, serene, cheerful. The fragrance also transports this. Everything stays within the framework, so to speak. No eccentricities, no wild carnival, no erotic escapades a la Casanova. The fragrance is neither "mysterious" nor temperamental, nor sensual. Rather pale. Already noble and elegant. Ladylike, but due to its now favourable price also available for ladies beyond palazzi and villas.
Unfortunately, sillage and shelf life are very, very low. And so Venezia weakens only half-heartedly after what feels like half an hour like an autumn plant in the wind of the late October days.
A fragrance named after such a fascinating city would have deserved more race. And above all, a longer right to stay. In the end, what remains is the impression of a pale, powdery sweetness that only hints at what it could have been with a little more personality.
Since the perfume is so delicate and subtle, women can't go wrong with it. Unless she wants to attract more attention and smell like it for a longer time.
It may be that the reformulated Venezia fits better into our time precisely because it is so light and suitable for everyday use. Fruit and vanilla - this recipe has always suited perfumes around 2011. Today, people expect more. A hint of oud perhaps, the aroma of the Venetian pine forests, dry wood nuances reminiscent of the sandy beach, rare resins for that mystical touch.
Once, in terms of marketing, everything that could be gotten out of the former diva at short notice was still available, but without red velvet or plush, without civet cat, without sensual musk.
You could also say that the diva has become pale and weak
Top Notes 
Plum
Peach
Blackcurrant
Heart Notes 
Ylang-ylang
Jasmine
Rose
Base Notes 
Vanilla
Amber
Sandalwood
Jazzy76
