There isn’t a lot to say about the Marrakech fashion scene, but holy shit is there a lot to show.

The Kasbah is dotted with tiny little tailor’s shops, each of them producing something unique. The Medina is practically pavéd with clothing stores, with dramatic ranges in design, construction, and price point. There is literally something for everyone here.

The atomic units of Moroccan clothing are the caftan, light and flowing, and the djellaba, heavier, usually with a hood, and used here like we use coats. The djellaba also serves to hide whatever decoration the women’s caftans have, so they present modestly when outdoors. Until you hit the high end, almost everything here is variations on those shapes.

With the exception of Western clothes, which are a thing here. But so far as I can tell these are cheap imported or knocked off goods, not made here. There’s so much knocked off designer crap here, you can get Louis Vuitton boxing bags and soccer balls.

In fact, the fashion scene here is so dense, I was forced to break it down so I could make sense of what I was seeing. Obviously, this isn’t a scientific taxonomy, just an attempt to understand the range of clothing on offer here.

Daily Wear

This category is inexpensive day-to-day wear, manufactured rather than hand made. Nothing here drops to the Walmart/Costco level of quality (that’s what the imported Western clothes are for), but the market is similar: just regular folks who need to get dressed to go outside without breaking the bank. But even in this category, everything seems to have at least some small detail that keeps it from being generic. Other than that, these are by the books caftans and djellabas, with very little deviation in shape and construction.

Fashion

Like Western fashion, this is the big, mushy middle, but for different reasons. In the West, this tier ranges all the way from J. Crew to Nordstrom’s designer ready-to-wear. Its defining characteristic is that it’s manufactured, not hand-made. In Marrakech, this tier is comprised of riffs on the traditional caftan and djellaba shapes, but either glammed up or executed at a ridiculously high level of craftsmanship. Everything in this tier is hand-made, and most shops will either alter or make to order, blurring what we consider a distinct line separating couture from ready-to-wear.

This is possible because making clothes is basically just another craft here, like woodworking or ceramics. There are a lot of people directly engaged in making things here, and the economy supports individual makers. As we know from trying to make Bespoke work in St. Louis, that model is almost impossible to pull off in the West.

This grouping shows off the Glammed Up end of the Fashion spectrum. Joan Crawford could have worn any of these.

Here, embroidery, both understated and bold, elevates simple shapes.

Finally for this group, the below is all from one shop, Maison du Caftan. It happens to be literally next door to our apartment, and the window displays were so gorgeous we were frankly intimidated. But when we finally went inside we were blown away.

Everything there is completely handmade, and they do all of the embroidery and embellishment on site. The quality of the work is astonishing, and the prices are surprising. Embellished blouses for about $80 USD, fully constructed jackets about $280. They’ll tailor to fit at no charge, and make from scratch if you want something special. The shapes are largely traditional, but the materials and the workmanship turn them into art.

High Fashion/Streetwear

In Western fashion, couture would define the top tier, but that doesn’t work here, as pretty much everything above the bottom end is hand-made, and often to spec. Instead, I’m using this tier to identify designers who are using the traditional Moroccan caftan and djellaba shapes as jumping off points. There is an enormous amount of creativity and passion in this tier, with a gleeful mixmastering of influences from all over the globe, producing a style that is distinctly Marrakechi. The intersection of tradition and modernism is our sweet spot, and Marrakech’s fashion scene delivers big time.

Here’s some looks from a few different shops from throughout the Souks.

This next batch is all from the same shop, Different. The shop was really big, with at least half a dozen discrete retail spaces. They were doing really interesting work.

Finally, my personal favorite, Funky Cool Medina. This wasn’t exactly next door, like Maison du Caftan, but it was all of two doors down from our apartment, so we passed it constantly. Zakariah, the sales guy, was incredibly friendly, and Fahd, the designer, was incredibly cool. His Instagram is funkyfahd, and is well worth following.

We spent some time chatting with Fahd. I specifically wanted to know how he sourced fabrics. A lot of them are vintage Berber weavings, and a lot are leftover bits he’s scrounged that are good for a couple of garments, at best.

I fell in love with a suit coat and bought it. It looked to both Dorothy and I like a modified Indian silhouette. Just as we were getting ready to figure out which specific shape, we talked to Fahd about the design. Turns out he wasn’t riffing on a specific silhouette. He was just fucking around until he got a shape he liked. The front vents, the shawl collar, and the offset front pocket are all just details he picked because they seemed to work together well, not because he’d set out with a design prompt in mind.

Also, the sleeves were too long, and when we came back an hour later they weren’t. Nonetheless, Dorothy is still doing some alterations. Everything can be made better. If you’re Dorothy.