Here is a fragrance untethered from gender binarism. It is Wilhelm von Gloeden’s turn-of-the-century photograph of a young Sicilian man dressed as a peasant woman. It is Robert Mapplethorpe’s portrait of bodybuilder Lisa Lyon. It is Mars as Venus, wolf as lamb.
Giovanni Farina’s original 1708 Eau de Cologne—a formula inspired by his youth roaming the alpine wilderness of Italy’s Vigezzo Valley—inspires this scent’s superstructure of bitter orange, lemon, bergamot, pink grapefruit, and neroli. Decoupling Eau from its masculine pedigree, Butch Femme uses Australian sandalwood and basil to surface an elusive and delicate femininity, while traces of black pepper agitate for new ways of thinking, living, and loving. When identities unmoor, revolution is afoot.
Notes— neroli, grapefruit, basil, black pepper, sandalwood
Essence— amorphous, androgynous, revolutionary, pastoral, elusive