Cynthia Rowley's Latest: CuRious Candy

I’m a big candy fan - red and black licorice, sour chewys, gummi bears, circus peanuts, Sweet Tarts, NECCO wafers, salt water taffy, gumdrops, violet pastilles, PEZ. You name it - chances are I love it. Economy Candy is to me what the Barneys shoe department is to a shoe fiend: dangerous! 

Last fall, when I bumped into Cynthia on the street, she told me she was opening a candy store on the Upper East Side. Having worked on her home line for Target, I knew she would do a candy store like no other. When I heard CuRious Candy opened (Get it? The C & R are capped for Cynthia Rowley?), like a sugar-obsessed addict I needed to check this place out ASAP.

Love this video she made to introduce the shop - I want to eat an edible vase too! Check out more images after the jump! (Nice cameo, CR!)

Imagine an alleyway steps from Madison Avenue, filled with dried bramble, twisty branches and oversized painted steel flowers; Hansel and Gretel would feel right at home walking up this come-to-life Grimms' Fairy Tales path. Located on the second floor, this candy store is like the Tim Burton version of Willy Wonka, slightly macabre and sexy. One of the first things you notice is the large white bird (an albino peacock), sitting among some branches - watching you as you wander through the store gazing at all the tubes and bins filled with all sorts of candy. Punctuating the black-binned wall are bright candy-colored (pun intended) molded sugar sculptures. Like colored vintage glass but so much better because you could eat them if you wanted!

On the opposite wall is something I’ve never seen before: bins filled with penny toys that are sold by the pound. So much fun! Party hats and tasteful favors as well as CuRious themed t-shirts abound.

Like the keyhole on her shopping bags, you need to seek this place out. Perhaps some signage at the bottom of the stairs or outside would help those that don't have the extra sixth sugar sense to walk down the path and up the stairs to this awesomely, wicked shop.

(Video via Cynthia Rowley)