March 16, 2006 Issue                                               

©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

What a Girl Wants: chocolates and designer fashions
by PAULA M. RILEY

Susan Lynn is surrounded by fine chocolates in all shapes and sizes in her new shop, which also features reduced-price designer fashions. (Photo by Paula Riley)

There are plenty of good reasons to stroll down Germantown Avenue to Mt. Airy’s revitalized business district. Now Susan Lynn has brought you another – ‘What a Girl Wants and A Guy Needs’ is the newest store in this ever changing business area. Just a door down from Infusion Coffee Shop, her one-of-a-kind gift boutique combines the finer pleasures so many women enjoy: quality chocolates, beautiful artwork and relatively inexpensive designer clothing.

From the first step you take into the store, all five senses are teased at once. The soothing classical music puts you at ease as you walk into a sweet aroma of chocolate. The store is playfully decorated with boxes of colorful and bright chocolates, the samples of which melt in your mouth. “I want my shop to always be an experience of color and excitement for your eyes and an aroma for your nose,” Lynn explains.

As you roam around the front of the store, you find chocolates packaged in all sized boxes to suit a variety of personal tastes. The bright pink polka dotted hat boxes caught my attention first. The packaging is adorable and the chocolates contained within delicious. “A perfect celebration of Spring,” Lynn exclaims. With another glance I see ribbons of every color, sparkled and plain, draped beautifully around all sizes of chocolate boxes. There are boxes wrapped with another special gift such as a woman’s watch and boxes with flowers atop them. These colorful packages make the store bright. As Lynn explains, “I love to play with packaging, there’s so much you can do with the chocolates!”

Lynn is very familiar with the chocolate business. She spent the last 20 years in Maryland, where she raised her son and daughter and ran the “Chocolate from the Heart” candy store. “I wanted to have a shop where our kids could go. As they grew up, they worked there, as did their friends. It was a wonderful place for the kids to be with me.”

Her children have since entered college, and she and her husband were looking for a change. They decided to return to her native Philadelphia and chose Mt. Airy as their new home. “We found Mt. Airy and just started talking to the people. They are wonderful, wonderful people.” Lynn explains, “There is such a great outlook for building a business in Mt. Airy. This is an amazing area, and we love it.”

As I am interviewing Lynn, a woman stops at the store. “Hello, I just wanted to drop by,” she explains. “I live in the neighborhood.” Lynn welcomes her like a lost friend. She shows her a box of chocolates packaged in a heart-shaped box decorated with bright red kisses and introduces her to a store favorite, Chocolate Lace. Lynn invites the customer to sample these thin strips of crispy dark chocolate and tells the story behind the name of these chocolates; long ago Russian children put caramelized sugar in the snow for a treat, and it came out looking like lace. She continues her tour and introduces her to chocolate pasta and edible gold drizzled atop chocolates. The new customer explores the store and chooses a small box of chocolate carmels.

“This is why I love this area,” Lynn tells me as her customer leaves. “There are so many people here who really care about the area. They come by just to say hello and support my business.” Lynn has great hopes for her store and firmly believes it will make a great impact on the retail district. “My store is a way to bring something to Mt. Airy and Chestnut Hill that they didn’t already have. I know that it will support the Avenue and help it become everything it can be,” she explains. “This combination of excellent chocolates and discount designer clothes is like nowhere else.”

The designer clothes she refers to include Armani jeans for $50, Dolce & Gabbana silk scarves for $25, Versace underwear for $25 and Prada purses for $200. How can she get genuine designer articles for these prices? “We get the clothing directly from factory overstocks in Italy.” Lynn shows me a colorful Dolce & Gabbana long-sleeved patterned shirt, explaining, “You can get this here for $25. If you went to Neiman Marcus, it’d be about $250”.

You never know what designer items they will have in stock, but that’s the fun of it. Lynn explains, “Our collection is always changing. Like these.” She holds up a pair of Prada pumps with a bright purple design. “They are so great, but I only have a few pairs.” The tour of her designer collection includes Armani suit coats, Christian Dior purses and Versace shirts. Susan hopes to entice those who wear these labels regularly and will appreciate the discounts, but she also wants to introduce these to people who’ve never worn designer clothes. “Now they can try them out. I know they will love these fabrics!” exclaims Lynn, a recent convert to designer clothes.

Lynn’s enthusiasm is contagious. She has great hopes for the success of her store and for the neighborhood. “My goal is to get to know the neighborhood and be a big part of it.” Lynn looks forward to proving to local residents that her gift shop has just what a girl wants and a guy needs. She recognizes that it will take time but explains confidentially, “People will come to have trust and know that once they come here, they won’t have to go anywhere else.”

What a Girl Wants and What a Guy Needs is located at 7125 Germantown Ave. (near Durham Street in Mt. Airy) at 215-247-9338. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 7 p.m. with extended hours during peak holiday times.