Shopping in Marrakesh
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Mohammed Ben El-Hair
Mt Everest is overrated; the most thrilling mountain to scale is the one of colourful Berber carpets in this tiny shop. Charming elderly proprietor Abu Mohammed ushers you in with a smile and mint tea, then waves towards the mountain with a single word of English: 'Democracy!' This is your invitation to clamber up, and start pulling down whatever carpets appeal to you. The prices are more than democratic; they're downright proletarian.
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Association Al Kawtar
Bring some baraka (good vibes) to your table with hand-embroidered table linens in spare, striking designs, all made at a nonprofit vocational training and daycare centre for disabled women and their children. Exquisitely edged pillow cases, hand towels and napkins make lovely feel-good gifts at perfectly reasonable fixed prices.
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Chez Les Nomades
A wide selection of antique and modern Berber carpets, reasonable prices, and a pleasant all-around carpet-shopping experience. Salah will explain (in perfect English) key differences in motifs, regions and quality with a variety of carpet types, then pull out carpets in whatever style and size appeals to you. Enjoy the tea and the education, without the usual hustle; here the selection speaks for itself.
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Michi
Berber wabisabi is the design ethic at Michi, a creative partnership of Japanese Marrakesh resident Masayoshi Ishida and Marrakshi master craftsmen. Together they've created a look that combines natural materials, spare forms, and a whimsical sense of humour: woven raffia wing-tip shoes, a long-handled mug with a tiny orangewood spoon, flour-sack tote bags lined with basketry.
Even with your most winsome bargaining behaviour, Michi is more expensive than most souq shops: staff know you won't find this stuff elsewhere.
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Enfin
Trim, modern, hottie tunics for men in sumptuous materials and colours: deep red linen, ivory with black trim around the neck, black raw silk with a single off-centre grey stripe. Prices aren't cheap, but with the right bargaining banter you can get better deals here than in Enfin's factory outlet in Sidi Ghanem. The pink-and-black boutique and sharply dressed staff are incongruously glitzy for the raw, hardworking northern section of the souqs - but that's what makes Enfin so quintessentially Marrakesh.
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Bob Music
In case you hadn't noticed the Bob Marley posters and music throughout the souqs, this store makes the Marrakesh-Jamaica connection even more obvious. Gnaoua musicians are quick to point out the similarity in some rhythmic patterns and tunes, but you can put this ethonomusicology theory to the test yourself: pick up some Gnaoua castanets or a drum in this shop, and try your own Gnaoua rendition of 'Redemption Song'. No matter how badly you play it, you're bound to make their day at Bob Music.
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Sidi Ahmad Gabaz Stucco
Like any visitor with 20/20 vision, you may already be awestruck by the stucco detail up the street at the Ali ben Youssef Medersa - and this is your chance to take home a piece of the stucco action. Sidi Ahmad carves traditional geometric and floral designs right in his shop as well as sweet nothings in French, but with a day's turnaround he will very graciously carve your house number or whatever you like in English…just don't get any four-letter ideas, you naughty people.
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Linéaire B Cosmetics
Flowery descriptions in French effusively promise therapeutic effects from organic local ingredients and superconcentrated essential oils here. Basics such as savon noir (black soap) cost three times what they might in the Rahba Qedima, but the speciality items are worth the premium: rich argan oil balm scented with jasmine, after-sun lotion with Barbary figs and healing herbs, facial masks with white mud from Fez and geranium-flower essence.
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Tresors De Mille Et Une Nuit
An antique-hunting couple from Philadelphia wander through the unmarked door of this family riad for a quick snoop, and within minutes they're earnestly discussing shipping containers. Happens all the time to Said, whose family has been in the décor and antiques business for generations and has the stockpiled treasures to prove it: sand-worn Berber doors, rare Tuareg amulets, Deco lithographs, and a striking armoire inlaid with camel bone.
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Mohammed Rida Ben Zouine
Saville Row tailors would bite their thimbled thumbs with envy at Ben Zouine's custom hand-finished men's shirts, curve-skimming linen dresses with handmade silk closures, and snappy hooded jackets in 'Moroccan cashmere' (thick combed-cotton flannel). Sidi Mohammed keeps tabs on the latest men's' suit styles from Belgium, and can make you a slimming, bitter chocolate brown suit with a sneaky orange lining that Dries van Noten might admire.
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Chez Mahfoud
Tucked away behind the florists and butchers at the farmers market is this unexpected silver jewellery boutique. As at any Marrakshi jeweller, about half of Mahfoud's selection is imported, but the other half is worth a look: designs range from auspicious enamelled hands of Fatima to chic silver-inlaid wood earrings. Mahfoud doesn't bargain much, because he knows what you'd pay for that onyx cocktail ring on nearby Rue de la Liberté.
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Yahya
These fabulous filigree lamps take the play of light to the next level: flip the switch and beams of light wink and flirt all around the room. Pity those geometric chandeliers aren't more portable, but the lozenge-shaped wall sconces and egg-shaped table lanterns add instant intrigue to dark corners. Shipping can be arranged, but insurance from Morocco isn't yet available from most shipping services - better to buy a bag and carry it on.
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Masroure Abdillah
It usually takes decades to earn the title maâlem (master craftsperson), but young Masroure earns the title the hard way, pounding wool with savon noir (black soap) into felt. He then moulds it into seamless slippers, baubles for necklaces, and sturdy tote bags. Masroure's felt flowers come in snappy shades of natural brown, bright orange and splashy hot pink, and make groovy brooches, hatpins and everlasting bouquets.
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Abdelatif Instruments
Musicians make pilgrimages to the lute-maker's souq to watch beautiful music in the making, and here you can glimpse maâlem (master craftsman) Sidi Abdelatif carving lutes, tambourines, ginbris (two-stringed banjos), and ribabs (single-stringed fiddles). Since you're buying straight from the artisan himself, you can customize yours and get a better deal, too - music to every starving musician's ears.
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Créazen
CréaZen's got your back stylishly covered with modern linen tunics with geometric embroidery and djellaba-inspired hooded silk shirts. Snap up pants and kaftans off the rack or made to order in linen, silky combed cotton or 'Moroccan cashmere' (cotton fleece), and don't miss reasonably priced designer accessories: jewel-toned silk necklaces, sassy tasselled belts and lucky leather slippers embossed with a hand of Fatima.
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Mustapha Blaoui
The next best thing to taking your riad home would be to take home all those fabulous furnishings - and with Mustapha Blaoui's generous shipping policy and stock of everything from hand-embroidered coverlets to inlaid rolltop desks, that's actually possible. Some items are imported from India, so if you want to bring home a Marrakshi specialty, just ask the easygoing staff to point you toward the locally produced goods.
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Kulchi
Now you know where Marrakshi clubbers get their chic looks. This local designer mixes trade-route African influences with a Marrakshi sense of humour: mod cocktail dresses in Senegalese Pop Art prints, sleek handbags made from recycled signage, and come-hither kaftans in diaphanous fabrics. Prices aren't cheap, but less than you'd pay for original designs back home. Check out the sister boutique inside Le Comptoir.
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Sidi Ghanem
The industrial quarter 4km outside Marrakesh along the Route de Safi is chock full of made-for-export design studios selling direct from their outlets. Hire a taxi for a couple of hours in the morning or late afternoon and troll the lanes to see what's open (hours are erratic). Head to Mia Zia for Moroccan-inspired knitwear, Akkal for ceramics and Talamanzou for handwoven Berber carpets in spare modern designs.
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Aya's
Deluxe, hand-embroidered designer fashions worthy of a royal reception are offered here, from chocolate brown linen tunics with geometric, sky-blue embroidery to striped-silk kaftans in jewel tones with wide black silk borders straight out of a Matisse painting. They're not cheap, but not a king's ransom, either - and unlike the chunky jewellery and leather slippers, you won't find similar designs elsewhere.
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Chay Abdelhadi
If you wish a genie would add some magic to your home décor - poof! - here's your dream pouf, in a range of shapes, colours and prices. The traditional round ones come embroidered, embossed and gilded, and the funky square ones are available outstitched, high-gloss and in rich natural shades. Prices vary by leather quality; the best is thick, durable and carefully tanned so the dye won't fade or rub off.
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Ben Rahal Carpets
For quality carpets without the usual rounds of mint tea, haggling and ceremonious hoopla, ditch the Medina and head for the fixed prices and easygoing attitudes of Ben Rahal. Don't be fooled by the size of the place: the small, careful selection may leave you spoiled for choice. Get informed about antique Berber rugs and realistic carpet prices here first, and avoid buyer's remorse in the souqs later.
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Librairie Dar El-Bacha
A fine selection of cookbooks, art books, and postcards, plus stamps to send them and some wonderful antique Moroccan stamps to take to all your philatelist friends back home. Bookshop owner Noureddine Tilsaghani is also a photographer, and you can pick up some of his atmospheric shots of Marrakesh here. There's a fantastic selection of Moroccan literature and poetry in (mostly French) translation.
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Alrazal
No abracadabra is necessary to turn little ones into fairy-tale princes and princesses: a handmade, embroidered outfit from Alrazal should do the trick. For the price of what you'd pay for off-the-rack back home, you can get kiddie couture dresses and swashbuckling velvet pant sets - and yes, those silk tunics come in women's sizes right upstairs. Alterations and made-to-measure are also possible.
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African Lodge
Before you hanker after camel-saddle coffee tables and henna-painted orb table lamps at this ultramod African design showcase, look into shipping at the DHL office around the corner. The ingenious chandelier made out of vintage crystals and twisted industrial wire looks like something an itsy glitzy spider might have made, and is certain to make design aficionados curse carry-on restrictions.
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Intensité Nomade
Mostly couture kaftans and tunics, with prices to match - but while you won't find bargains, you will find cleverly tailored men's linen shirts by major Italian and Moroccan designers. Hassan Hajjaj's silk-screened Pop Art T-shirt features colourful tea glasses for a Moroccan twist on Warhol, and a minutely pin-tucked ivory silk shirt duly humbles those of us who struggle with mending socks.
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