La Roca Village by The Bicester Collection is paying tribute to Lleida - and it’s a lesson in real Catalan cool

About 40 minutes from Barcelona’s chaos, the road opens into the calm of the Catalan plains - and there it is: La Roca Village by The Bicester Collection, an open-air labyrinth of pastel buildings and polished windows that’s quietly rewriting what luxury looks like. Less about labels, more about stories, it’s become a meeting place where art, fashion and Catalan culture intersect.

This autumn, that intersection points towards Lleida, the region that’s long embodied Catalonia’s creative soul. With “Lleida: Origin, Character and Style,” La Roca Village pays tribute to the land that shaped so much of its identity - through photography, illustration and gastronomy, it celebrates a kind of beauty that’s rooted, not manufactured.

Inside the Art Space, the mood shifts. Black-and-white photographs by Toni Prim hang like windows into another time: sun-cracked hands, linen shirts, the kind of faces you only get from a lifetime outdoors. Prim, one of Lleida’s great visual chroniclers, has been documenting life in the region for decades. His work blurs documentary and art - it’s beautiful, yes, but it also carries weight. You can almost smell the dust.

The exhibition also nods to Pepa Domingo, the 1980s designer who turned Catalonia’s avant-garde into a movement. Domingo backed names like Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada and Sybilla before they were cult, weaving rural textures and rebellion into her clothes. Together, she and Prim defined a kind of Catalan creativity that was equal parts honest and subversive.

Then there’s Lara Costafreda, the Lleida-born illustrator and creative director giving the Village a dreamier, more modern touch. Her work spills across façades and windows - vines tangled in pastel rooftops, flowers blurring into watercolor skies. It’s romantic, but with bite.

“This project has been a way of coming home through art,” Costafreda says. “It moves me that a place dedicated to fashion also embraces art, female talent and sustainability - values that define both my work and my connection to Lleida.”

Her pieces make the place feel alive - not a shopping outlet, but an open-air canvas where commerce and creativity actually get along.

Over by the Concierge, things get even more sensory. Aitona Gourmet, a pop-up from the Benet family - farmers turned artisanal producers - brings Lleida’s agricultural soul straight to the city crowd. There’s arbequina olive oil with Denomination of Origin, honey so golden it looks lit from within, and wines from small, sustainable vineyards. Every jar and bottle feels like a small act of resistance against fast living. This isn’t about “products”; it’s about patience and pride.

And then there’s the Raimat Arts Festival, now in its fourth year, taking the celebration back to the vineyards of Lleida itself. The festival blends music, art and sustainability - the same values that run through La Roca Village’s approach to luxury. Together, they form a creative loop: from the land to the village, and back again.

Running until January 2026, “Lleida: Origin, Character and Style” isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about connection - to the land, to memory, to the kind of artistry that doesn’t chase trends.

Because in celebrating Lleida, La Roca Village by The Bicester Collection might have stumbled on the ultimate modern luxury: a sense of belonging.