Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech

Overview

The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech honours the fashion designer who fell in love with the city and made it a second home. Opened in 2017 beside the Jardin Majorelle — which Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé rescued and restored — it's housed in a striking terracotta-brick building by Studio KO, whose woven, fabric-like façade sets the tone. Inside, a permanent collection of the couturier's work sits alongside changing exhibitions, a library, an auditorium and a café.

Yves Saint Laurent first visited Marrakech in the 1960s and returned constantly, drawing inspiration from its colours and light; he and his partner Pierre Bergé bought and restored the neighbouring Jardin Majorelle, and after Saint Laurent's death his ashes were scattered there. The museum, run by the Fondation Jardin Majorelle, was built to house and celebrate the vast archive of his fashion house, and it opened in October 2017 to wide acclaim.

The building itself, designed by the Paris- and Marrakech-based practice Studio KO (Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier), is a landmark of contemporary Moroccan architecture. Its terracotta-brick façade is laid in a lace- or weave-like pattern that evokes the warp and weft of fabric, hinting at the couture within, while the interiors are smooth and sober, like the lining of a jacket. It's a deliberate dialogue between the crafts of building and dressmaking.

At the museum's core is a permanent exhibition hall presenting a rotating selection of Saint Laurent's garments, sketches, photographs and accessories, tracing the themes and silhouettes that made him one of the 20th century's defining designers. Beyond it are a temporary exhibition gallery, a research library, an auditorium, a bookshop and a café. Sitting right by the Jardin Majorelle in Gueliz, it's most rewarding visited together with the garden — combined tickets are available — and, given its popularity, is best booked ahead.