aixcentric

I wonder if you recognise this village?

It looks like it could be anywhere in Provence, but in fact it is totally new and home to over 80 top brand boutiques, 7 cafés and a host of customer-friendly services.  McArthurGlen Provence, the ‘village des marques’, which opened in the spring, is at Miramas, an easy 45 minute drive from Aix.

The company has taken enormous efforts to recreate the village aesthetic: the buildings are typical of the area and the cobbled squares  have fountains and pretty plants.  But this village also has:

• a splendid playground for children

This large playground is well-placed next to one of the cafes

• babychanging facilities next to sparkling loos
• huge free car parks
• free wifi and phone-charge area
• baby-buggies and wheelchairs
• multilingual customer service and on-site tax rebates for non-EU shoppers.

Brands include Nike, Levis, Michael Kors, Armani, Diesel, Escada, Calvin Klein, Superdry, Timberland – lots of clothes, shoes and some home & decoration shops.  As it is an outlet, there are good discounts and the company’s web-site has offers (print out vouchers, that sort of thing).

Alongside all of this is a spacious art gallery currently showing ‘Rodin and His Contemporaries’.  The show features eight rare and fine quality Rodin bronzes – including original castings of his most successful work, ‘The Burghers of Calais’, his full-length study of Balzac and his portrait of Victor Hugo. A further 14 iconic bronze sculptures are on display from Rodin’s most celebrated contemporaries, including Aristide Maillol.  This ends September 9th but a new exhibition will be installed for October.

The cafés range from Farinella for Italian dishes, a good patisserie, Dubble Food for salads, smoothies and wraps (all the better to fit in those designer clothes), Bistrot Provence, Burger Federation and Starbucks.

We enjoyed our first visit this week – kids back to school, it was probably quieter than normal, but as the South of France’s first designer outlet, it had a healthy number of shoppers, most returning to cars with lots of smart carrier-bags.

Open: Mon-Sat 10-21:00hrs

Details: https://www.mcarthurglen.com/fr/mcarthurglen-provence/en/