From Hansel and Gretel’s candy house to Willy Wonka’s sweet-filled factory, candy has long been part of our childhood fantasies and fairy tales. Luckily, Papabubble – a popular Barcelona-born sweet boutique with shops in Amsterdam and Tokyo – now makes that fantasy a reality in New York's Nolita. Opened this fall, Papabubble is the newest addition to the neighborhood’s spread of trendy sweet shops (think Pinkberry, Rice to Riches, and Mariebelle), nestled next door to the area's designer boutiques.

No one seemed better suited to take a first-hand look at the shop than handbag designer Jenny Yuen, whose sunny California disposition and penchant for playful prints made her an obvious subject to try out Nolita’s newest seduction. Not to mention, Papabubble is dangerously close to the designer's apartment. Starting out in the studios of Japanese pop-artist Takashi Murakami before creating her own namesake accessory line– adored by the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and featured in Teen Vogue, Nylon, and Marie Claire– Yuen’s bags are as crave-able as your favorite confection and could easily be the perfect arm candy. psychoPEDIA brought Yuen to the shop one snowy morning to watch the shop-head and skilled candy crafter, Fiona, make the first fresh batch of candy that day. Armed with a big black puffer and one of her namesake pink handbags, Yuen sampled some treats, confessed to a dessert addiction, and discovered her newest neighborhood haunt:

Do you have a sweet tooth?
Yes, really bad! I like chocolate, lollipops, cake – anything with sugar in it, I’d probably like.

Had you noticed the store before?
I came in here to get my friend a giant lollipop as a birthday present. But, I didn’t come in here earlier for myself, because I knew I’d be here all the time trying everything.

Are your bags inspired by your love for candy?
My spring ‘08 collection was actually inspired by candy, honey, and caramel. There's another great shop down the street where I was sampling all their exotic honeys, so we even made a honeycomb print with honey dripping down.

We try some of the hard candies from the sample jars.

Favorite flavor?
The lavender and lychee ones are really good. The lavender is really relaxing. It reminds me of those lavender eye-pillows.

What do you think about the shop?
It’s like an alchemist’s studio – sort of lab-like. It’s colorful and cute, like it could be a perfumery or something.

If you could design a candy, what would it look like?
Maybe put a high-end logo in there, or make fun of it– like the [Alex & Chloe] Chanel [“Coco is Dead”] logo that’s dripping. High-end logos dripping in candy might be kind of cool. It would be funny, because logos are everywhere.

Fiona pours out the hot sugar, swirls in the color and passion-fruit flavor, stretches the sugar mixture, then moves to crafting the large tube of hardened sugar mixture and shaping it into tree-shaped lollipops.

What are your impressions of the candy-making process?
It's very physically intensive, like a workout. And very time sensitive. If you don't start working the candy right away, it could harden and then you'd have to start over. It looks like a lot of fun, and it's so great that the candy makers are able to be creative and come up with their own candy sculpture, like Christmas tree lollipops or a candy Matterhorn Mountain.

Do you like their display?
The jars of candy remind me of when I worked at Takashi's studio and we had a huge inventory of little jars of paint colors. They were almost the exact jars and all brightly colored and meticulously labeled just like the candies. I think I even compared them once to jars of candy when I was working there!

What are you working on right now?
Fall ’08, which is very different from Spring; I was inspired by surrealists, and this place down the street called Da Vera. It’s an old antique store with old doll parts and weird artifacts— pretty dark and creepy, but very nostalgic. [This collection is] still very playful, but in a dark way— like Tim Burton and The Nightmare Before Christmas, or those weird little books like Edward, with dark humor and skinny little drawings.

Why is Nolita a great spot for Papabubble?
I think Nolita is an interesting pocket in the city. Despite all the build up in SoHo, Bowery and Lower East Side, you can still find cute little restaurants, boutiques and bars. It's great because the person working in the business most likely owns the store too. With things becoming so commercial, places like Papabubble bring that personal touch back. Each piece of candy comes with a story, like when Fiona makes the passion fruit candy and tells us it is her favorite. It makes you stop and savor the taste a little more.

Do you see common ground with the mix of shops in Nolita?
I think it all gets connected— arts, fashion, food, design, comics, graffiti artists, literature. People are becoming very nostalgic. With the precarious position the world is in today with war, global warming, diseases— people want to be reminded of a more carefree time like when you were a child and watched Saturday morning cartoons and ate candy all day.

Would you come back here to satisfy your cravings?
Yes, and I just went to the dentist and no cavities, so I am sure they will see me a lot more.

~Leann Peterson