It’s enough to make a fashionista weep—with joy. From chic Palm Beach down to casual Boynton Beach, Palm Beach County offers a retail landscape of elegant boutiques, funky streets, upscale promenades, downtown districts, quiet antique rows, bustling outdoor markets, and enormous malls that defy the imagination in terms of size, scope of merchandise and variety of entertainment options.
In the seaside enclave of Palm Beach, an air of traditional elegance pervades the fabled shopping corridor of Worth Avenue, the “Rodeo Drive of the East Coast,” whose famed boutiques—including Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci and Jimmy Choo—draw royalty, celebrities and tourists alike.
The tone is more casual in West Palm Beach’s Clematis Street District, popular for its energetic mix of culture and arts, bistros, pubs, dance clubs, and shopping choices that include galleries, clothing boutiques and jewelry stores. Show up on Thursday night, and you’ll be in the midst of an outdoor festival with bands, crafts and food vendors.
But plan to spend at least a few hours—if not the day—at West Palm Beach’s CityPlace, a 55-acre shopping and entertainment complex featuring vibrant, Old World streetscapes and plazas along with more than a dozen destination restaurants, nearly 80 national and regional stores, art galleries, and a 20-screen cinema.
To the south, Mizner Park in tony Boca Raton offers a similar mix of shopping and entertainment, as does the Town Center at Boca Raton, which recently added a “lifestyle expansion” called the Terrace at Town Center, featuring a Crate & Barrel, Anthropologie and other newbies.
If merchandise from another era is more your speed, try the Atlantic Antique Mall in Delray Beach, where two floors covering more than 10,000 square feet of exhibit space brim with vintage collectibles from over 100 vendors.
Shopoholics will be thrilled to discover that even the high-end retailers of Worth Avenue cut prices during value season in Palm Beach County (mid-April to mid-December). Visitors can contact the CVB for the savings certificate book “$1,000 Worth of the Palm Beaches for Free” to enjoy additional savings throughout the county.
