Do you remember your room at Dar Kawa? Or perhaps you know it through the photographs that have been circulating for so many years. Mumtaz, Omani, Baboune, Olmassi, Fenaan. Five rooms, five ways of living with V.Barkowski linens.
For a few more weeks, in the Mumtaz suite, the messages embroidered on the bedspread, the hands with oversized arms stretching along its entire length. In the Omani junior suite, white, pompoms, small passementerie balls, and tone-on-tone finishes. Baboune plays with the colors of the Aqua Multicolore range, an Olive bedspread designed for AM.PM, a white linen curtain embroidered with a hand of Fatima. At Olmassi, the red embroidery of the bed linens echoes the amber of the bath linen. And then there’s Fenaan, the room where we welcome artists, with its discreet embroidery and its stars scattered in Fès stitch. Each room has its own personality. The bedding mixes, the bedspreads change places, the pairings evolve. I compose with the patterns, the colors, the embroidery. It’s a work that never stops. And linens are everywhere. In the bedrooms, in the bathrooms, on tables set every morning. Sheets, towels, tablecloths, bathrobes, cushions, curtains. All these pieces, I have chosen or created over the years, often in response to a need in the house.
Dar Kawa and my collections have evolved together for nearly thirty years. The house lets me see how my designs weather time. The sheets go through the wash, return to the beds, go out again. The napkins accompany meals, the bathrobes leave the bathrooms. I observe the materials, the embroidery, the finishes. I refine one technique, invent another. Everything is made by hand in our workshop, in Marrakech. Use feeds the design, and the design returns to the house. Yumi and Yam began their life here, before joining my collections. The curtains, too, eventually found their way into my range, after repeated requests from visitors who had seen them at Dar Kawa.
There’s something that always amuses me in the relationship certain guests develop with the linens. They discover the embroidery by sleeping in my sheets, using the towels, living for a few days with the textiles. They touch them, look closely, notice the precision of the stitches, the fineness of the finishes, all that work that isn’t always visible in a photograph. The same linens are available at the VB Store, in Marrakech. And yet, I’m sometimes asked to let guests leave with the sheets from their room. Those exact ones. I understand this attachment. These are the sheets they slept in during their stay at Dar Kawa. And that detail changes everything. This time, they’ll be able to take them home. I’m attached to these linens. Each set reminds me of a room, a trip, an encounter, a need that inspired me to design something. I could go on living surrounded by all of this for years. But my need to create is stronger. It’s a leap into the unknown. I also feel it as a gift I’m giving myself: the possibility of starting over. And there’s another pleasure in this decision. That of sharing what has lived with us, with me, in this house.
The November 21 sale
On November 21, 2026, the V.Barkowski linens used at Dar Kawa will be offered for online sale, alongside around a hundred lots of furniture and objects. Bedspreads, bed linen sets, cushion covers, table and bath linens, bathrobes. Pieces from my collections, one-of-a-kind items created for the house. These linens have been used over the years. Some may recognize the sheets from their room, a bedspread glimpsed in a photograph, the towels from a breakfast on the patio. I like the idea that these linens might find their way to those who have a connection to Dar Kawa, close or distant. That a part of our story might also become a part of yours.
Work on the new Dar Kawa has already begun. Today, I’m shuffling the deck, picking up my pencils again. I draw, I erase, I start over. I’m rethinking the way we live in this house. The furniture, the linens, everything. In January, the sold lots will leave Dar Kawa. The house will be emptied of its current decor to make way for what I’m now imagining. Thirty years after discovering Dar Kawa, I find myself once again before my drawings. And I want to see what I’ll make of it.
(ART)wareness, an Exhibition That Shapes Awareness, Literally As part of ‘’What’s on’’, the Off program of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Marrakesh, Céline and I are hosting the A(RT)wareness exhibition in my studio, above the V.Barkowski store in Dar El Bacha. From 4 to 10 February 2026, the space will present a series …
A dish discovered in 1991, a lead pursued in 1996 In 1991, on her first trip to Morocco, Valérie Barkowski saw women working with a large raw earthenware dish, used to roll couscous or knead bread. She bought one, with no other idea than to use it at home. A saucy dish, served the very …
The term ‘slow travel’ makes me smile. To me, it means something very simple: taking the time to inhabit a place until it is no longer foreign. This is what happened with the Marrakech medina, which I walked through and across, year after year, until it became my own. 1996. I didn’t know yet that …
Dar Kawa linens, a story to share
Do you remember your room at Dar Kawa? Or perhaps you know it through the photographs that have been circulating for so many years.
Mumtaz, Omani, Baboune, Olmassi, Fenaan. Five rooms, five ways of living with V.Barkowski linens.
The linens of the rooms
For a few more weeks, in the Mumtaz suite, the messages embroidered on the bedspread, the hands with oversized arms stretching along its entire length. In the Omani junior suite, white, pompoms, small passementerie balls, and tone-on-tone finishes. Baboune plays with the colors of the Aqua Multicolore range, an Olive bedspread designed for AM.PM, a white linen curtain embroidered with a hand of Fatima. At Olmassi, the red embroidery of the bed linens echoes the amber of the bath linen. And then there’s Fenaan, the room where we welcome artists, with its discreet embroidery and its stars scattered in Fès stitch.
Each room has its own personality. The bedding mixes, the bedspreads change places, the pairings evolve. I compose with the patterns, the colors, the embroidery. It’s a work that never stops.
And linens are everywhere.
In the bedrooms, in the bathrooms, on tables set every morning. Sheets, towels, tablecloths, bathrobes, cushions, curtains. All these pieces, I have chosen or created over the years, often in response to a need in the house.
From the house to the workshop
Dar Kawa and my collections have evolved together for nearly thirty years.
The house lets me see how my designs weather time. The sheets go through the wash, return to the beds, go out again. The napkins accompany meals, the bathrobes leave the bathrooms. I observe the materials, the embroidery, the finishes. I refine one technique, invent another. Everything is made by hand in our workshop, in Marrakech. Use feeds the design, and the design returns to the house.
Yumi and Yam began their life here, before joining my collections. The curtains, too, eventually found their way into my range, after repeated requests from visitors who had seen them at Dar Kawa.
Leaving with the sheets
There’s something that always amuses me in the relationship certain guests develop with the linens.
They discover the embroidery by sleeping in my sheets, using the towels, living for a few days with the textiles. They touch them, look closely, notice the precision of the stitches, the fineness of the finishes, all that work that isn’t always visible in a photograph.
The same linens are available at the VB Store, in Marrakech. And yet, I’m sometimes asked to let guests leave with the sheets from their room.
Those exact ones.
I understand this attachment. These are the sheets they slept in during their stay at Dar Kawa. And that detail changes everything.
This time, they’ll be able to take them home.
I’m attached to these linens. Each set reminds me of a room, a trip, an encounter, a need that inspired me to design something.
I could go on living surrounded by all of this for years.
But my need to create is stronger.
It’s a leap into the unknown. I also feel it as a gift I’m giving myself: the possibility of starting over.
And there’s another pleasure in this decision. That of sharing what has lived with us, with me, in this house.
The November 21 sale
On November 21, 2026, the V.Barkowski linens used at Dar Kawa will be offered for online sale, alongside around a hundred lots of furniture and objects.
Bedspreads, bed linen sets, cushion covers, table and bath linens, bathrobes. Pieces from my collections, one-of-a-kind items created for the house. These linens have been used over the years.
Some may recognize the sheets from their room, a bedspread glimpsed in a photograph, the towels from a breakfast on the patio.
I like the idea that these linens might find their way to those who have a connection to Dar Kawa, close or distant. That a part of our story might also become a part of yours.
The new Dar Kawa
Work on the new Dar Kawa has already begun.
Today, I’m shuffling the deck, picking up my pencils again. I draw, I erase, I start over. I’m rethinking the way we live in this house. The furniture, the linens, everything.
In January, the sold lots will leave Dar Kawa. The house will be emptied of its current decor to make way for what I’m now imagining.
Thirty years after discovering Dar Kawa, I find myself once again before my drawings.
And I want to see what I’ll make of it.
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A(RT)wareness. When Art, Bodies and Stories Come Together
(ART)wareness, an Exhibition That Shapes Awareness, Literally As part of ‘’What’s on’’, the Off program of the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in Marrakesh, Céline and I are hosting the A(RT)wareness exhibition in my studio, above the V.Barkowski store in Dar El Bacha. From 4 to 10 February 2026, the space will present a series …
Dar Kawa’s raw tableware and raw cotton
A dish discovered in 1991, a lead pursued in 1996 In 1991, on her first trip to Morocco, Valérie Barkowski saw women working with a large raw earthenware dish, used to roll couscous or knead bread. She bought one, with no other idea than to use it at home. A saucy dish, served the very …
Embracing slow travel in Marrakech: a way of life
The term ‘slow travel’ makes me smile. To me, it means something very simple: taking the time to inhabit a place until it is no longer foreign. This is what happened with the Marrakech medina, which I walked through and across, year after year, until it became my own. 1996. I didn’t know yet that …