Today, the air is slightly warmer, the sun is a bit brighter, and the budding flowers are now in full bloom! Spring is here which means Easter! Dylan Lauren, daughter of the American fashion designer Ralph Lauren, the founder of New York City’s Dylan’s Candy Bar, and mother of two, spills her tasty tips and tricks for the holiday season this year!
What does your family do for Easter now that you have one of your own? Do you have any traditions for the holiday?
My favorite Easter tradition is the Easter egg hunt. Every year my parents would hide colorful foiled chocolate eggs in the grass, flowerpots, under shoes, etc. It was always a challenging and athletic event for my two older brothers and me! The hardest part was sprinting to find the chocolate eggs before they melted in the sun. I’m proud to say I have remained the champion bunny Easter egg hunter, and I do love rubbing that in every year. Now we do the same thing with our kids and I can’t help but want to participate in the actual hunt and coach my children so they carry on my Easter egg hunting talents!
What are some Easter traditions that your parents celebrated with you and your siblings that you like to continue to celebrate today?
I enjoy sharing my love for animals and particularly rabbits with my own family. Rabbits have been an obsession of mine my whole life, and not just around Easter! This love began when my dad brought me a stuffed Steiff rabbit from Europe, and it quickly became my new favorite toy. A few years later, I had real life rabbits named Chocolate and Vanilla, which are now the official mascots of Dylan’s Candy Bar. Flash forward to today, a giant version of Chocolate greets guests at the Third Avenue Flagship, and I have a personal collection of more than 3,000 rabbit items—from stuffed animals and stationery to plates and towels. Rabbits are always a focal point during my Easter celebrations.
What are your favorite treats to hide in Easter eggs or stuff in your children’s Easter baskets?
I love Easter because of the unique, vibrant colors that the candy comes in. There’s the rainbow spectrum but there’s also every version of those rainbow shades in pastel, which makes this holiday stand out. I typically use the popular traditional Easter candies from my store, which are also my favorites like Cadbury Creme Eggs, colorful foiled chocolate eggs, giant sculpted foiled bunnies, jelly beans, speckled chocolate malted eggs, vibrant hen eggs that are filled with my favorite marshmallow, Peeps in bunny and duck shapes and glossy Jordan almonds. Of course, I also include our Dylan’s Candy Bar Chocolate and Vanilla bunny plush!
What’s your secret to making your Easter memorable? Do you have tips to laying out a food spread or do you like to decorate the table in a certain way or do you plan an activity that gets everyone together to have fun?
I make sure everyone comes dressed in pastel or solid rainbow colors and I provide rabbit ears for extra Easter spirit. I love starting the event with the Easter egg hunt, and then the crescendo is the counting of the eggs to see who won! The winner gets the grand prize: our huge Golden Egg filled with treats. As seen in my book Dylan’s Candy Bar: Unwrap Your Sweet Life, I set the table with a yellow or green tablecloth and then make each place setting like a fun hunt in itself. I put jelly beans in the bottom of glasses, Peeps on the rim of the glass, and our best of this season’s Dylan’s Candy Bar Easter favors on top of the plate (like our candy-filled bunny box and ‘Simply Ear-resistible’ white silk bunny pouch), paired with a customized name tag from our Personalize It department. I make the centerpiece beautiful but also easy to dismantle so I can share it with guests after the lunch. This year it will be our giant edible Chocolate the Bunny who will be standing next to an apothecary jar of layered pastel candies. Everyone enjoys eating the candy decor throughout the meal, which makes cleaning up extra easy.
