For an instant break from sterile modernity, head to the Moroccan souk to admire the inspired craftsmanship of local maalems. Most of the wonders of Moroccan design are created without computer models or even an electrical outlet, using only imagination, the eye, colors and shapes, and of course a skilled hand.
All of this requires experience. In Fez, the minimum training for a ceramic maalem is 10 years, and it takes a zellij (geometric tile) mosaicist three to four months to master a single shape—and with 360 shapes to learn, mastery is a lifelong commitment. When you watch a maalem at work, it’s the confidence in the hand movements, not the speed, that indicates a masterpiece is in the making. Techniques and tools are passed down from generation to generation, and friendly competition among neighbors fosters innovation.
Rather than sprawling factory showrooms, mâalems work wonders in small spaces that line the souks, each specializing in a traditional craft. Rural artisans are not on the fringes: many Moroccan villages are known for a distinctive embroidery style or rug design. Most of the artisans you’ll see in the souks are men, but you’re likely to spot female mâalems working behind the scenes, knotting rugs in villages in the Anti-Atlas and Middle Atlas, weaving textiles along the southern coast, and painting ceramics in Fez, Salé, and Safi.
Carpet
If you manage to return from Morocco without a carpet, you can congratulate yourself on being one of the few travelers to have outwitted the world's most cunning salespeople.
Moroccan rugs hook travelers almost every time, because there’s a rug to suit everyone—and if that sounds like what your mother once told you about soulmates, it’s not entirely a coincidence. Traditionally, women in rural Morocco produced rugs as part of their dowry, expressing their own personalities in exuberant colors and patterns, and weaving symbols of their hopes for health and married life.
Today, rugs are mostly made to supplement the household income, but in the hands of a true maalem, a hand-woven rug brings so much personality and baraka (blessings) underfoot that it can never be mistaken for a simple doormat.
The rugs you see in the souks may have been bought and sold three or four times already, with the final price representing a significant markup over what the weaver received for his work. Consider buying directly from a village association instead: the producer is more likely to receive his fair share of the proceeds, you will get a better deal without having to negotiate at length, and you may even meet the artisan who created your new rug, which is what Artisanat Shop offers in its store, with no middlemen or traders between the producers and the store, which guarantees a rug at a fair and very reasonable price.
How to choose your Moroccan rug?
- Know your limits, including empty wall and floor space, your airline's baggage weight limit, shipping and customs fees, and the purchase price.
- Be careful with antique rugs. There are very few authentic antique rugs left in Morocco. New rugs are aged from being taken out and walked on, bleached by the sun, or treated in other ways.
- Inspect for knots. You'll be asked to pay more for rugs with a higher number of knots per square inch, which you can discern by examining the back of the rug for spaces between the knots. Some rugs are washed in hot water to bind the wool more tightly, but you can often spot these shrunken rugs by their warped, uneven edges.
- Prices are often higher for rugs whose wool is colored using vegetable dyes (which tend to fade more quickly) rather than synthetic ones; you can usually recognize them by their muted tones, and the rug seller may be able to tell you which plant was used to make the dye.
- There is no fixed price, so enjoy the experience. Joke before you haggle, keep your sense of humor, come back tomorrow and drink a mint tea so sweet you'll want to brush your teeth twice. In addition to the good memories, you'll end up with a rug that suits you.
Carpet Categories
- Rabati Rugs: As the name suggests, they hail from Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Its plush pile rugs in deep jewel tones, typically feature an ornate central motif balanced by fine detailing along the borders. Many of the designs may remind you of a formal garden, but you may also see more recent animal motifs and vibrant modern abstract designs. Rabati rugs are highly sought after and the most expensive can cost you as much as Dh2,000 per square meter;
- Simple and striking Sahrawi rugs made in southern Morocco, with zigzags, asterisks and enigmatic symbols on a variegated red or purple background (around Dh700 to Dh1000 per square meter).
- Hanbels or kilims These flat-woven, pileless rugs make up for their softness in character. Some hanbels feature Berber letters and auspicious symbols such as the evil eye, the Southern Cross and the Berber fibula (brooch) in their weave. Ask the seller to explain these to you – whether folklore or fibres, the rug seller’s interpretation adds to the experience (from Dh400 to Dh900 per square metre).
- Zanafi or glaoua kilims and long-pile rugs, finally united. Opposites attract in these rugs, where sections of downy pile alternate with stripes or flat-woven borders. They generally cost between 1000 and 1800 Dh per square meter.
- Shedwi Flat-woven rugs with bold patterns in black wool on off-white, so natural you can still feel the lanolin between your fingers when you rub them. Starting at Dh400 for a small rug, these make impressive but inexpensive gifts.
Textile Crafts
Anything that isn’t nailed in Morocco is likely to be woven, sewn or embroidered – and even then, it may be upholstered. Moroccan women are the unsung mâalems of Moroccan textiles, and the tradition they have established has recently helped attract emerging fashion companies and global brands to Morocco. A third of Moroccan women are employed in the Moroccan garment industry, but for meticulous handwork with a personal touch, check out traditional textile crafts.
Embroidery
What is this gentleman doing with a hairdryer and silk thread in a medina alley? He is a passementerie mâalem (decorative embroidery trim) who uses a salvaged hairdryer to spin thread from a nail stuck in the wall until it is the perfect width and length to make knotted buttons, silk tassels, and djellaba and gandoura trimmings. In mini Moroccan passementerie shops the size of wardrobes, you will find enough gold braid to decorate an army of generals and more tassels than a burlesque troupe could spin in a lifetime – but you will also find a jackpot of small gifts. Moroccan maalems have made a full-fledged art of cutting and wrapping wire and washers with silk thread to create modular necklaces, towel holders, knotted key rings and curtain pulls.
Moroccan embroidery ranges from simple Berber motifs to intricately detailed terz Fezzi, the elaborate nature-inspired designs that are stitched in blue on white linen and that women in Fez traditionally spend years mastering for their dowries. Rabati embroidery is a veritable explosion of color, with bold, graphic flowers made using one or two-tone silk thread that almost completely obscure the plain cotton backing. But the ladies of Salé also deserve their due for their striking embroidery in one or two bright colors along the edges of crisp white linen.
Weaving
Beyond the multitude of bright synthetic sarouals and djellabas found in Moroccan souks , hand-woven Moroccan fabrics of exceptional shine and texture may catch your eye: soft organic cotton from the Rif, lustrous "vegetable silk" woven with cotton and rayon from the south, elegant table linens from Marrakech, and super-soft wool blankets from the High Atlas. Some lesser-quality knockoffs are industrially produced, but connoisseurs seek out the softer side, tighter weave, and elegant drape of hand-woven Moroccan fabrics.
In the souks or village cooperatives of the region, you may spot two to four women weaving, working on a single piece. Men work on assembly looms for djellaba fabric, pushing sewing machines with their arms while pressing pedals with their feet – producing a yard of fabric this way is a workout equivalent to running several miles while dribbling a basketball. You can buy ready-made linens and clothing or get hand-woven fabric by the roll or yard, and have Moroccan home decor and sewing items made to measure. Tailors can be found in all major cities, but be sure to allow plenty of time for the initial consultation and two fittings for garments.
Leatherwork
Now that camel saddles are no longer in high demand, Moroccan leather artisans are busy fashioning embossed leather book covers and must-have handbags out of what look like medieval dentistry tools. In the derbs (alleyways) of the medinas, you’ll find freshly tanned and dyed leather carved into fashionable square poufs (ottomans), yellow tassels carefully sewn onto elegant fuchsia kid gloves, or shocking silver leather stretched and sewn into ruffled slippers.
Along these leather souks, you might spot artisans stamping henna onto stretched goatskin to make candlesticks, lampshades, or standalone tattooed leather art pieces. If you’re in town for a few days, you can even have an artisan make you a custom bag, a lambskin jacket.
If you’re looking for authenticity, men will prefer traditional yellow babouches (slippers) or “Berber Adidas,” slippers with soles made from recycled rubber tires. Women’s babouches come in a wider range of colors and patterns, and you may see vats of vibrant dye used to make them in the tanneries of Fez. But as colorful as they may seem from a distance.
Ceramic
Moroccan ceramics are a real treat and offer excellent value for money. A decorative tagine can set you back anywhere from Dh150 to Dh400, depending on the size and decoration. Each region has its own colour palette: Meknes ceramics tend to be green and black, Fassi pottery is blue, Safi offers black and white Berber patterns, and Tamegroute makes a distinctive green glaze from oxidised copper. Salé is characterised by yellow and turquoise, geometric patterns and intricate dot-patterned tableware. Marrakech specialises in monochrome red, graphite or orange ceramics, without elaborate decoration. Many rural areas specialise in earthenware tableware, with simple, striking shapes and henna-painted Berber lucky symbols.
Zellige
To make a Moroccan fountain, grab your hammer and chisel and carefully carve a glazed tile into the correct geometric shape. Good job—you’ll only have 6,000 pieces left to complete your water feature. Or, let Moroccan mosaic masters beautify your entryway with coffee tables, mirrors, and fountains of all sizes made from zellige (colorful geometric mosaic tiles). Fez has a reputation for producing the most intricate and brilliant zelliges, and the city’s historic fountains dating back to the Middle Ages are compelling advertisements for Fassi’s masterpieces.
Brass, Copper and Silver Crafts
In Morocco, tea is a performance art, and one that requires the right props. As if tea being poured over your head wasn’t spectacular enough, brass teapots and copper tea trays are hand-hammered to catch the light and engraved with calligraphy to convey baraka to all who partake. Pierced brass lamps and recycled tin lanterns add instant ambiance. And if you fail to impress your guests, serve them a slice of cake with an inlaid knife from Kalaat M’Gouna, Morocco’s dagger capital.
Most Moroccan "silver" tea accessories are actually made of nickel silver (an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel), and should cost accordingly - around Dh100 to Dh450 for the teapot, and usually more for the tray (depending on the size and design).
Berber jewelry
In Morocco, all that glitters is not gold, as many Berbers traditionally believe that gold brings bad luck. You may see jewelers with magnifying glasses working delicate gold filigree, but most of the gold you’ll see in the souks is imported from India and Bali. Sterling silver is marked 925 and is often sold by weight rather than pattern. Moroccan mining operations focus more on phosphates and fossils than gemstones, but you’ll see dowry jewelry and folk headdresses with semi-precious stones, including coral, agate, carnelian, and amber.
But Moroccan males don’t need precious materials to create an object of beauty. Ancient ammonite and trilobite fossils from Rissani make fascinating prehistoric amulets, and striking Berber silver fibulae (brooches) are a specialty of Tiznit. Layers of wood, nickel silver, and brightly colored enamel make trendy cocktail rings in Marrakech, and Tuareg desert talismans made of leather and silver are appropriate gifts for a worldly man.
Woodworking
The most pleasantly scented part of the souk is the carpenters' area, whose scent comes from the curls of wood that line the floors of the master carvers' workshops. These are the mâlems responsible for the ancient carved cedar doors, edged with brass, and those carved cedar domes in the shape of muqarnas (honeycombs) that are the wonder of Moroccan palaces. Tetouan, Meknes and Fez have the best reputations for carved wooden ornaments, but you'll see impressive woodwork in most Moroccan medinas.
For the foodies on your gift list, hand-carved orangewood harira (lentil soup) spoons are small ladles with long handles that make ideal tasting spoons. Cedar is used for ornate jewelry boxes, and heavy, chip-carved chests are sure to keep moths at bay.
The most prized wood is thuya wood, a knotty burl from the roots of trees native to the Essaouira region. Buy from artisan associations that practice responsible tree management and harvesting.
