ATELIER

Mint Tea. Laughter. Needle & Thread.

The workshop is the heart of it. The place where ideas, still shapeless in the morning, risk becoming real. Where everything begins, and sometimes, too, where everything stops: a stitch gone wrong, a pompom too fat, a laugh in the wrong place.

I find the gestures again. The material. The breath of steam, the click of the machines, the murmurs. The attention of those who know how to make things. And that tension, almost musical, when time runs short and everything speeds up.

Every morning, that familiar ballet: the women arrive, trade their bright djellabas for work clothes. A ring slipped into a pocket, a bun pinned back in a hurry. The tea brews: mint, sugar, talk. The smell alone makes me smile. Hot flatbreads are torn by hand, stuffed with melted cheese. And that line: “Agi madame, koul.“ (Come, madam, eat.) A ritual. Steadying. Almost sacred.

© RTBF

The workshop is a refuge. A laboratory. Under the white sheets covering the tables, I read whole inner worlds: a dented cushion, a pen always kept on the left, plum velvet bristling with pins. Slippers under a chair, a forgotten scarf, a notebook closed with care. Every place tells a story. So does every absence.

On the hour, the laughter drops. Work begins. Fatima hands out the tasks. Some are building a single piece, others are making for hotels, architects, decorators.

After all these years, their precision still amazes me. A thread, a needle. Nothing spectacular, and yet it’s all there. Pompoms lined up like soldiers. Embroidery rising up, fine as a well-chosen phrase. A perfect finish. Here, things are done slowly. But well.

© Tania Panova

Making something in the morning, holding it in your hands by evening. Here, that still exists. And when a beautiful piece is born, you can feel it. It moves through the room. And if it sells, well, that’s close to a small celebration.

It takes flexibility. Trying, failing, starting again. Looking for solutions the way others look for a needle in a haystack of deadlines. Glances cross, gestures fall into step. I am there. Stubborn. Not always easy.

The materials are everywhere. Improbable scraps, failed samples, spools scattered about, colour ranges in shades that seem dreamed up by mad children. The girls giggling. Fatima sighing over the boys who forget, again, to put the toilet seat down. She grumbles, they dodge. Everyone knows this scene by heart.

The lottery of samples, prototypes, pieces never put into production. The announcement alone is enough to send a little thrill of joy round the room. Then everyone takes what they’re given, pretending not to care, one eye on what the person next to them got.

This is where my sketches are born. We draft, we feel our way, we correct. The light is precise. Slanting. It brushes the stretched sheets. I think of grey days in Belgium, and I smile. Here, I am alive.

The workshop has its underside too. A human organism, and so a temperamental one. Morocco has its own logic of time. And I, Belgian, have learned to improvise, to be patient. To adjust to the rhythm, to welcome whatever comes unplanned.

There are days that go off the rails. Absurd mistakes. Surreal flights of fancy: a giant duvet cover, sleeves sewn in backwards, a cat embroidered on without warning. The embroiderer, perfectly serious: “It’s nicer this way, Madam.” A night watchman asleep under a machine. A storekeeper convinced that banana boxes make perfect bases for trimmings. And one day, yes, black magic slipped into the boxes. The workshop in shock. Another story. But a true one.

This place is alive. Precious.

© Delphine Warin

What’s passed on happens gently, without grand speeches. Skills shared, choices made together, silences that mean “I understand you.” My team is taking its place. Naturally. As for me, I’m stepping back, slowly. Not too much. Just enough. Fatima still grumbles. The girls still laugh. Amal keeps watch. The machines keep going. And I look at all of this with the strange feeling that one day, the workshop will get on just fine without me.