Searching for a street named after Yves Saint Laurent won’t take you to Paris. Google Maps will instead direct you to a street in Marrakech, home to the new YSL Museum. A decade after the death of the designer, meet the city where the genius who first dressed women in androgynous suits rests to this day.

 

Marrakech was the backdrop to every YSL design session since 1966. The Red City also witnessed the birth of the fashion house’s safari jacket, “the saharienne”, inspired by the German Korps who took war to Africa during WWII.

 

“Yves has given as much to the city as he got inspired,” says Olivier Flaviano, director at museum YSL Paris.

 

Living proofs are the Berber Museum, containing Saint Laurent’s personal collection of Moroccan history, or the new Musee Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, a homage to the couturier and the city.

 

Stroll along Jemma al-Fnaa Square, where the Berber women’s Kaftans, terracotta buildings and market stalls taught Yves audacious colour combinations.