
A few years ago there was a Chinese TV show that asked the audience to guess whether the guest was a man or a woman. The audience could ask any questions and typically the guest-in-drag (or not) would get stumped when asked some questions only a particular gender would know the answer right away. If Fendi’s Palazzo (“Building” in Italian, 2005) went there as a guest for fun (and humiliation), I bet most people would guess she’s a feminine-acting man, but it turned out she really was a woman.
It’s because Palazzo starts out like a couple marching hand-in-hand, both wearing their own perfume – the girl smells flowery (jasmine, rose, orange flower) and a little tangerine fruity, but her boyfriend is a wearing something woody (sandalwood, patchouli, gaiac) and strange, like the smell of super glue. A few hours later, her weirdo boyfriend dumps her and now she is running free, beautifully.
If you read the comments on Fragrantica.com you will see a lot of women lamenting the fact that Palazzo is discontinued. I suggest Kenzo’s Ca Sent Beau, if you happen to find it, which is also unfortunately discontinued, but it smells even fuller, and equally strange.
[Side note about that TV show: one may question why in Taiwan there are many young men that look and act feminine. A speculation suggests that it’s all because of the artificial drink-mix powder used in bubble-teas (super popular when they first appeared in the market), as it contains certain plasticizer that causes hormone imbalance.]