When I go on a trip, I often give myself a quest. For Morocco, my quest was to acquire a new purse. The one mom brought me from Italy years ago finally became unsalvageable, and Morocco is known for its leatherworks.
The tannery we visited in Fez has been operated by the same family, using the same techniques, for 600 years or more. A guide took us up through the shop to a balcony where we could see every step in the process. First, skins laid out to dry, staked to the rooftops or hanging from racks
Then men standing in giant carved holes in a plain of rock, swirling skins in colored water. Some of these vats had urea and other chemicals to tan the hides; some had dyes. When I asked about the dyes (and whether it was safe for them to be just…standing in the dye water), the guide told me that the dyes are all plant-based, and none poisonous. Saffron, poppy, turmeric.
Inside the building, rooms where people cut and sewed the leather into bags, jackets, shoes. You could even order something made particularly for you, and have it delivered to your riad the next day, if you didn’t find an item that suited among the rows and rows of finished products.
I’m perpetually fascinated by these trades that are handed down through families, traditions that resist the shifts of history. This family has been passing this craft from one person to the next for six centuries. And also, the people we met were just like anyone else—wearing t-shirts proclaiming their allegiance to a soccer team, arguing on a smartphone with a customer or supplier, joking around with me about my discomfort with haggling. In and of history.
Oh, and I did get my bag. It was just what I was looking for, and unlike anything else in the whole shop. One of my friends described its vibe as “sexy archaeologist,” and I’m here for it.
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