The island's primary commercial center is at Maharepa, where you'll find black-pearl shops, banks, grocery stores, hairdressers, the main post office, and other services. The neocolonial buildings of Le Petit Village shopping center anchor the northwestern corner, where numerous stores sell pareus, T-shirts, and souvenirs. Supersonics (tel. 56.29.73) carries film, camera batteries, stamps, magazines, and other items. There's also a grocery store.
Boutiques and art galleries are numerous on Moorea, but they come and go as frequently as their owners arrive from France and then decide to go home. The shops I mention below have been around for a while. One of the most reliable places to look for pareus, tropical dresses, aloha shirts, bathing suits, T-shirts, shell jewelry, and handicrafts is La Maison Blanche (The White House), in Maharepa near the Moorea Pearl Resort & Spa (tel. 56.13.26). It's housed in a whitewashed vanilla planter's house with railing enclosing a magnificent veranda, which alone makes it worth a stop. Open daily from 8:30am to 5pm.
Black Pearls -- Moorea has more pearl shops than you can visit in a normal vacation. In fact, many of the stores will come looking for you, with offers of free transportation to and from your hotel or the cruise-ship landing in Opunohu Bay, and tour operators are likely to deposit you at the shop offering the highest commission at the end of your excursion. Always shop around.
Among several stores near the old Club Med site in Haapiti is Tahia Collins (tel. 55.05.00; www.tahiacollins.com), formerly the Black Pearl Gem Company. Owner and chief designer Tahia Collins was a Miss Moorea and is a scion of the Albert Haring family (you will see the Albert name all over the island). Her husband, Marc Collins, was born in Hawaii of an American father and Tahitian mother. Theirs is the most aggressive pearl dealership on Moorea, and since they have the concession on some of the cruise ships, Tahia Collins will be the first dealer many of you will encounter here. Others worth visiting in this area are Herman Perles (tel. 56.42.79) and Pai Moana Pearls (tel. 56.25.25).
My favorites are the lower-key shops the other side of the island.
