Vivocity has made some good retail transitions in the last couple of years. Where once the mall had a happy (but mixed) bag of retail offerings, today she has so carefully curated her stores that the happy, Island of Fun vibe is no no more confined to only certain areas, but is pumped out along her corridors, through her open areas, and in her stores.
And whilst some tenants are anchors- Tangs and Golden Village cinemas being two of them- they've been there the longest time-some spaces have witnessed a bit of transition.
Like this gargantuous space that sits right across from the cinemas.
I dont know if y'll remember, but before Candylicious, it was a bookstore called Page One, and this I'm pretty sure, because The Parents and I used to hang out here together with the hardcover books, the pretty stationery, and the movie merchandise.
It was a sad day when the bookstore closed down and moved out.
Still it wasn't so bad when Candylicious moved in, because candy and chocolates are happy foods and I spent a good amount of time hanging around the shelves looking at beautifully wrapped chocolates, colorful candies, jelly beans from The Jelly Bean Factory in the United States, and big bags holding Hershey's Kisses wrapped in foils of silver and gold.
Candylicious was a great place to be at Christmas time and on Valentine's Day.
At Christmas, there would be boxes and boxes of elegant-looking chocolates for the purpose of gifts, there would be tins of chocolate-coated biscuits for the children, and there would be alcohol-infused chocolates in gold-colored tins for the drawing-room types amongst us.
Come Valentine's Day, however, there would be beautiful roses made out of fabric arranged artistically on the shelves, and on little tables placed around the store, each of them accompanied by boxes of chocolates decorated with flowy, romantic ribbons.
It has been some time since I visited Vivocity, and so it came as a surprise when I dropped in the other day and found that Candylicious was having a moving-out sale.
Of course I went in- for nostalgia's sake- and to be honest, it was a little sad to see the shelves devoid of all the familiar merchandise. Gone were the lollipop teeshirts, the lollipop holders and the candy-colored toys. Gone too were the Reese' peanut butter cups that I used to buy. All they had now were earthy-colored cushions- each of them going for $9, boxes of biscuits, several (large) bags of M&Ms in various flavors, some very big lollipops, and the collection of jelly beans- which, still, no sampling. :)
It is time to say goodbye to the candy people at Vivo, I suppose, and even though this side of mainland may no longer have their store, thankfully there's still one at Resorts World Sentosa across the body of water locals call a pond.
I just have to walk across to there.