Fashionable shoppers stroll Istanbul’s Nisantasi quarter, wandering in and out of the highest-end international luxury storefronts: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Dior, Hermes, Gucci, Cartier. A new player in the neighborhood has just opened shop, offering the same elegant surroundings and chic merchandising. But Godiva Chocolatier is not selling sparkling jewelry or thousand-dollar bags. It’s just merchandising its confectionery that way, with a store that cries out to the international sidewalk traffic: “We’re the diamonds and rubies of chocolate.” “In fact,” says designer David Ashen of d-ash
design (Long Island City, N.Y.), “the internal working name at Godiva for the store concept was ‘pirlanta’ – Turkish for ‘brilliant jewelry.’ ” It’s a powerful message for a culture notorious for its sweet tooth. And who better to deliver it than Godiva, which has marketed itself as the gold standard for chocolate since its 1926 founding in Brussels? After 40 years as a division of The Campbell Soup Co., Godiva was acquired in 2008 for $850 million by Istanbul’s Yıldız Holding, which owns Ülker Group, the largest consumer goods manufacturer in the Turkish food industry. So Godiva
Godiva Chocolatier’s new Istanbul store is a celebration of luxury merchandising, with sleek lines, polished surfaces and merchandising that suggests expensive jewelry and high-end accessories as much as chocolate candies.
vmsd.com | March 2011
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