Yves Saint Laurent worked in Paris for most of his adult life, but he was famously enthralled by Morocco. He and his partner, Pierre Bergé, owned a series of homes in Marrakech and began collecting regional art and textiles there in the 1960s.
For its new exhibit, “Berber Women of Morocco,” the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent, which occupies Saint Laurent’s former haute couture house in Paris, features more than 200 items, including gorgeous textiles, jewelry, and ceramics, on loan mostly from the permanent collection of the Musée Berbère, a museum of Berber culture Bergé and Saint Laurent founded in Marrakech.
Berber history spans thousands of years across much of North Africa. This exhibit focuses specifically on Berber women from the Rif Mountains in Morocco’s north to the Sahara in the kingdom’s south and examines how their mastery of traditional arts such as weaving, jewelry, and basketmaking has helped sustain an ancient culture that is uniquely African and Mediterranean.
The exhibit includes kaleidoscopic Beldi carpets, wedding blankets, and haik wraps; silver headdresses and necklaces and cuffs made of amber, coral, glass, and shell; and a series of kohl eyeliner pots and tagines, as well as archival photographs and ethnographic films of traditional Berber women.
Items in the main salon are niched in terra-cotta-orange displays. Overhead, a black ceiling inset with small round lights glitters like a starry night high up in the Atlas Mountains.
With items ranging from elaborate jewelry to handwoven carpets, the collection demonstrates how traditions were passed down by Berber women over generations.
Source : Morocco on the move
