Sensory Overload

Lose (and find) yourself in Marrakech’s most stylish haunts

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Jean Paul Gaultier, Serge Lutens, the Hermès family, the Bransons, the Bulgaris — every stylish globetrotter seems to have a bolthole in Morocco, where Europe almost touches Africa at the Strait of Gibraltar. And one of its major inland cities, Marrakech, is a magnet for fashion buffs, a sublime fusion of the elegant and the exotic that is by turns antediluvian and achingly chic. It’s hard to name a label that hasn’t squeezed Africa’s most stylish city for creative juice. A few recent collections by Tory Burch and Mara Hoffman come to mind, while Matthew Williamson, fresh from Poppy Delevingne’s Marrakech wedding, drew inspiration for his pre-fall 15 collection from its architecture, mosaics and decorative techniques. And for spring/summer 18, Anthony Vaccarello opened his show with a boho parade inspired by the city loved by Yves Saint Laurent.

Marrakech is divided into three main districts: the 12th-century walled-in medina; Ville Nouvelle, which edges it; and the tiny Palmeraie, on the town’s desert outskirts. But its heart is the bustling main square, Jemaa el-Fnaa, which transforms by night into a not-to-bemissed food court, and the slender laneways that snake off it twist through a dazzling maze-like bazaar. Get ready to amass a collection of local treasures: lanterns, bedspreads, carpets, handbags, jewellery, slippers and embroidered velvet coats. You’ll find yourself desiring curtain tie-backs (hammered silver discs so lushly tasselled they’re like drop earrings for your drapes) or handira (glam woven blankets banded with sequins and plush fringe). Never been? Never mind. With these picks, your Marrakech to-do list will match any style maker’s.