Recipe for chocolate fixturing success: Take one designer with specific functional and general aesthetic fixture goals. Add two expert manufacturers. Fold in value engineering. Watch them cook up solutions together.

While JGA had clear ideas about what the perimeter system for Lindt Master Chocolatier should be able to do and a general notion of how it should look, the firm allowed fixture producers Look and Golden Oldies Ltd./G.O. Concepts to suggest ways to produce it more easily, more cost-effectively, and more installation-friendly.

“They wanted a rail system with the look of a movable perimeter system. Given the product category, the challenge was maintaining European sensibilities with the simple, contemporary design rather than allowing it to approach a high-tech appearance. It’s so visible against the light wall that we did not want it to overwhelm the tiny boxes of chocolate,” explains Steven Kolb, account executive of New York-based Look.

The solution was warm finishes on a mix-and-match system based on a slim metal rail, which offered the desired flexibility without looking bulky. The rail, made by Look, provides continuity for interchangeable display, marketing, and stocking elements connected to it. Set at 10 ft. above the floor, the rail is the only element actually mounted to the wall. Playing off of it are pieces forming a floor-to-ceiling system whose configuration can be changed as the retailer sees fit.

Look created a vertical ladder system with adjustable brackets that can be placed anywhere along the rail for ultimate flexibility. JGA designed a variety of wood accessories that work off the rail system; the retailer can choose from among them to create merchandise floor sets—and then change it easily at any time. Golden Oldies, headquartered in Flushing, N.Y., made the accessories, which include open shelves connected to the vertical metal ladder, open shelves on leaning wood “wall straps” connected to the rail, merchandising cubbies, and base cabinets that provide backup stock and additional display options.

The fixture system’s sleek, contemporary form is warmed by the tones used in the finishes, which enable it to fit with the merchandise and the store environment, which include limestone flooring and woods. Rather than its typical silver tones, Look developed a custom bronze anodized finish for its aluminum rails, using the same finish on custom frames created for marketing graphics. Golden Oldies provided the retailer with two sets of ash wood accessories for versatility, one stained a dark mocha (shown) and the other with a hand-rubbed white wax finish for a softer look. The manufacturer also used the hand-rubbed white finish on the base units, made of a cost-effective combination of MDF and poplar.

Completing the ensemble is a matching metal hang rack made by Look that mounts to the ceiling inside the store’s windows.