There are fairs that you visit and there are others that you enter as if you were in a memory. This is the case of ‘Les Makilas de la Brocante’, in Arcangues, an enchanted village in the heart of the French Basque Country, located in an incomparable setting with the castle of Arcangues, the centuries-old church and the cemetery overlooking the infinite where you can breathe a sacred air and which I fell in love with as soon as I saw it.
Moreover, this 2025 celebrates its 20th edition and it is no coincidence that it does so with its soul intact and a reputation that grows with each spring. For two days, 31 May and 1 June, this elegant and serene spot just a few minutes from Biarritz is transformed into a sanctuary of the past.
More than 80 exhibitors, collectors, antique dealers, history buffs, come from all over south-west France with their treasures in tow, all telling stories. There is no rush, just the murmur of the soft footsteps of those of us present, hushed conversations and that unique feeling of being immersed in another time as if you had woken up inside an 18th century French novel.
As I stroll around the stalls, sipping a good coffee, at a slow pace, I enter a story with no end. There the exhibitors don’t sell objects, they sell souls, past lives that tell real stories. What is told is neither bought nor easily told, it’s that sweet pang in the chest when you touch a 19th century chair and wonder how many stories it has witnessed.
I close my eyes for a moment and imagine myself, in another life, descending the stairs of an 18th century French chateau and sitting down, as I slip on the big shimmering silk skirt in neutrals and lace, to savour the food on those fine china plates and antique cutlery, I wipe my mouth with the delicate linen napkins and exquisite beige embroidery, and I wipe my lipstick, looking at myself in the voluptuous gilded mirror with its curved+baroque frame, in which so many people have reflected themselves years ago.
In Arcangues, the past has not gone because the essence remains to live every year, this fair that does not collect antiques, but souls. Simply magical.
