On a frigid Thursday in Manhattan, Dylan's Candy Bar is bustling with people seeking solace from the unkind weather, while the likes of Sammy Davis Jnr's Candy Man and the Archies' Sugar, Sugar play in the background. The huge emporium, launched by Dylan Lauren, the daughter of fashion honcho Ralph, is an astonishing candy cornucopia billed by its owners as the largest in the world. 'It's obscenely obscene,' notes Lisa Whitlock, 37, a manager for a London accountancy firm, as she gestures to the colourful riot of sweets around her. 'It's so typically over-the-top New York.'
That doesn't seem to bother the customers on this day. A group of teenagers queues at the cafe for their fix of Cookie Mess ice cream, one of 30 flavours offered. 'It's like Candyland,' says high-school student Trichelle Borg, 14, referring to the popular children's board game. 'It's like Willy Wonka's factory,' pipes up her friend, Giselle LaCourte, also 14. 'It makes you feel like you're five again.'
Maybe it's the giant fibreglass candy canes near the cafe or the profusion of psychedelic glass lollipop heads tilting from tall metal stems in the middle of the floor. Or it might be the stools with peppermint-swirl cushions awaiting anyone who approaches the cafe bar. In fact, from the first glimpse of the massive plaster rabbit (store mascot Jeffrey the Bunny) grinning next to the door, it's clear Dylan's is equal parts amusement park and shop. Then there's the candy: it covers every square centimetre, in bulk form and boxes, stashed in cylinders and bins, arrayed on bright fixtures that look like even more confectionery. For the Winter Sucks lollipop display in the plate-glass storefront, for instance, a forest has been fashioned from every imaginable flavour and size of lollipop.
Although it occupies 930 square metres and two floors in one of Manhattan's highest-rent districts - Third Avenue and 60th Street, a block from Bloomingdale's - the two-and-a-half-year-old shop has been drawing customers like bees to honey by offering not just a store but a sweet fantasyland. Like other high-end retailers that strive to create a lifestyle experience - think Ralph Lauren's flagship store in a nearby Madison Avenue mansion, or his Polo Sport stores where kayaks dangle from the ceiling - Dylan's seduces its customers with its ambience as much as its confections.
'We call it 'eatertainment',' says Dylan Lauren, who refuses to give her age but who is reportedly 30. 'My model is Disneyland, the sort of entertainment fantasyland of Disney. And Willy Wonka - in the movie, there was a chocolate river and cotton-candy trees. Here, all the architecture looks like oversize candy. Also, my dad's stores ... the shirts always felt edible to me - the pinks, greens, reds and yellows - all the colours of the sweaters stacked up together. They were so beautiful. I grew up with a fashion and retail background, knowing that world, and I just love candy, so I see the world as candy.'
The self-marketing Lauren name has helped make the shop a celebrity magnet and drawn plenty of media attention. The senior Lauren is one of the company's financial backers ('I funded it partly myself, and he's one of the partners,' Dylan says). New Yorkers have long been used to restaurants and bars owned by actors and models, but a potent mixture of awe and mystery surrounds Ralph Lauren and his retail empire, creating a strong curiosity factor. The chance to see a Lauren offspring's output is like getting a peak inside the house of retail royalty.