Get lost in Marrakech, in the footsteps of Yves Saint Laurent

In the peace of patios, nature flourishes while the colorful medina is filled with the city's clamors.The Moroccan city was a setting for the creativity of Yves Saint Laurent.

Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) could not avoid getting lost in the immense medina, the old Arab city of Marrakech.Descended in February 1966 to the Mamounia, at the time alone Palace in the area, he walked north and rushed into the maze of souks.Babouching merchants, tea service manufacturers, leather pouf sellers, metal lace chandeliers, carpet traders, butchers in their tiny shops, leaflets of belts that pursue you by promising youA good deal is still there.Saint Laurent loved this atmosphere, which reminded him of his childhood in Oran.

She changed a little.In places, green plastic nets have replaced the canisses protecting from the sun the alleys where, in bluish smoke, the bikers slalom between walkers with a virtuosity of Olympic skiers.From the 1990s, foreigners bought the riads, these beautiful houses hiding patios and terraces behind their windowless facade and they gave the medina to the medina.At dusk that night in February 1966, the young couturier had to arrive on the place Djema’a El-Fna, where the Marrakchis converge each evening.There were not all these restaurants yet (not recommended for tourists) aligning their grilled sheep heads.Lost in the crowd, he saw henna tattoo artists, snake charmers, monkeys showers, dove trainers who fly away to complete ten times.He saw the Moroccans in djellaba making a circle around storytellers who are brought about as an electric current.He listened to the rhythms of Gnaouas musicians, these slave descendants, and understood that Marrakech was a crossroads of peoples from the sea, the mountain, the desert and West Africa.