Cynthia Rowley : fashion candy

  Controversial new promotional video of Cynthia Rowley offers two models sitting at a table, eating greedily their cups, plates and cutlery. Finally, they get on their knees and gorging on the table itself. The models are thin industry-standard, but the clip is not intended as a comment on the demands of their diet. It is a marketing campaign for the latest creation of the fashion designer: a candy store called Candy curious.

Instead of the usual soft pastels of confectionery, sweets are curious two stores in New York in the colors gray, purple and green decorated. When Mrs. Rowley, 54, goes to the West Village shop platform heels on a recent Monday, she points to a stand eyeball lollipops near the cash register. It is of course, the new take on the traditional tea set with cups of tea edible.

Ms. Rowley is not the first fashion figure branch candy girl Dylan Ralph Lauren created Dylan's Candy Bar in the far north, but Willy Wonka fantasy is closer to the macabre version of Tim Burton. "This is a completely dark and a little twisted kind of Candyland," she said.

Since its inception it has for nearly three decades, Ms. Rowley has increased its clothing line for women, including everything from cocktail dresses to edgy color combinations is a lifestyle brand with more than 60 branches. He sold more than 300 million products per year mark. This kingdom was room for experimentation. Over the years it has made its way into the establishment, blogs and books home.

Candy curious is the second project of the venture capital fund is internally under the umbrella of the brand, Ms. Rowley creates a seed fund to support business ideas of its employees. "As the industry changes, I think you can not stay at one thing certainly," she said. The industry has developed lifestyles. "People are more health and well-being, and a relaxed way of dressing," she said. "And with online shopping, there is a barrier-free access, which has created a wider audience."

The first house was startups exhibit A, a website launched two years ago in collaboration with his former manager Laura Martin. The website sells reproductions of contemporary artists at affordable prices draw limited. Ms. Rowley (attended art school and is Bill Powers, a gallery married) said that it is excited by the possibilities of e-commerce in both the art and fashion. She has also recently used a site glasses.

Ms. Rowley is a co-founder of two exhibitions and curious candy. He is hoping that the candy store is to attract attention to its brand offline. Simultaneously, it will draw the candy category "with a patina elegant fashion." Providers are Cynthia Rowley dresses and bags of candy with Cynthia Rowley bands covered crackled and packaging. They will be around the city to give soon put up posters around the cotton candy scented candy store and clothing collection known.

He grew up in Barrington, Illinois, Mrs. Rowley is the daughter of a science teacher and a mother stays home with the artistic currents. "I grew up with such a solid foundation that I feel a little scared," she said. His parents still live in the house where she grew up, a "monument to my idyllic childhood," she says. "It was great to see [a recent visit], but I said," What are you all day? "She said, laughing." It was not enough stimulation! "

One of his first acts was reckless to the Art Institute of Chicago months before graduation. She had just received a grant of design, and when the bill came, they drove a U-Haul in New York to shoot his senior project in a nascent online. Ms. Rowley has finally received its official diploma a few years ago, after consultation with the school. (The school said that the course requirements have changed since they took and they actually earn enough credits to graduate.)

Ms. Rowley arrived in New York in the late 1980s, and she sewed her first collection itself. In memory of the years it has drawn a sketch of a sewing machine on fire on the walls of his New York City clothing store.

More recently his appearances on television shows "America's Next Top Model" and "Project Runway" was a boon for the company, and has Ms Rowley and her husband took advantage of the contributed part of the circuit Manhattan. It had its share of setbacks, too. It was planned to redesign the uniforms for United Airlines, but the plan failed when the company merged with Continental.

Lately, it has to be combined to fashion and sports. Some new clothes looking woman Rowley Wetsuit, and some of his top wetsuits are covered with lace. Add sports pieces of his collection was a response to the needs of the often contrary women's clothes, she said, is dressed like sitting for an event or raid gear drive weekend. "Nature of the work lies somewhere between the two," but relaxed and will accept with offices, she says, "business casual" is not as great as it was.

At his shop in Montauk, NY, where she spent the weekend and much of the summer, Ms. Rowley sold only casual clothes, like a surf line, which launched in cooperation with the sports brand Roxy. The pieces have little in common with the line of flirty dresses she designed when she arrived in New York. "It's funny, but people think I'm still girlie clothes," she said. "At first that is what I did, but it's like typecast as an actress or something," she laughs. She compares her first collections in the first guest appearance of a Hollywood star in a horror movie. "I'm not only the girls scream!"

In Montauk, she's the girl who hit the waves, among other activities. On a recent Saturday, there, Ms. Rowley wakeboarding for three hours playing Wiffle ball and then browse before boarding the afternoon with their children, 8 and 14 years.

It is a quiet day compared to its regular schedule. While balancing her clothing line and brand new, it is a "triathlon mom" every day, as she calls it. This means go deposit his eldest daughter to school in downtown Manhattan, and the power at home, where she goes for a dip in the pool behind his home in the West Village. Then Bikes his first encounters of the day at 9 clock and do not let it up to 20 hours usually she admits. "I'm not good to relax"