{"id":13938,"date":"2026-07-23T11:48:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T09:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/?p=13938"},"modified":"2026-10-08T12:18:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T10:18:27","slug":"fez-embroidery-the-origin-of-our-noon-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/fez-embroidery-the-origin-of-our-noon-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Fez Embroidery: The Origin of Our Noon Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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In 1997, Val\u00e9rie Barkowski extracts a single stitch from Fez embroidery<\/strong>, enlarges it, and scatters it irregularly across a white cotton pillowcase. This is the first piece in the Noon<\/strong> collection. Twenty-nine years later, it is still made by hand in the Marrakech workshop, with the same gesture, with the same thread.<\/p>

Fez embroidery: what makes it unique<\/h2>

Fez embroidery<\/strong>, or Tarz el Ghorza<\/em>, is one of the most complex embroidered techniques in Morocco\u2019s heritage. Its line stitch is built without a preliminary drawing: the embroiderer counts the warp and weft threads, starts from the centre of the piece, and builds her geometric motifs from the inside out.<\/p>

Its absolute singularity: the right side and the reverse are strictly identical. You see no fastening stitch, no thread left protruding. The motifs\u2014stars, crosses, arabesques\u2014are impeccable on both sides. A standard few embroidered techniques can reach.<\/p>

Traditionally monochrome, it unfolds in blue, garnet, green or plum. But this work was not found in shops. It lived behind the walls of homes, passed down between mothers and daughters, reserved for wedding trousseaux. Val\u00e9rie Barkowski discovers it in that space\u2014domestic, non-commercial, invisible from the street.<\/p>

\u201cFrom the moment I arrived in Marrakech, this embroidery fascinated me\u2014an absolute precision that gives an impression of simplicity. So ordered, symmetrical, impeccable.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a9Tania Panova<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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From traditional technique to Noon: a deconstruction<\/h2>

Traditional Fez embroidery<\/strong> forms large, structured motifs that cover the entire surface. Val\u00e9rie Barkowski chooses to break it down: she extracts a single stitch\u2014a small eight-pointed star that forms a square\u2014and isolates it.<\/p>

This single stitch, she enlarges, shifts its scale, then scatters it irregularly across the entire surface of a pillowcase, then along the edge of a bedsheet. The result: an embroidery that retains the rigour of the Fez stitch while producing a radically different visual effect\u2014airy, minimal, contemporary.<\/p>

This is the brand\u2019s constant working method: identify a savoir-faire, understand its internal logic, extract one element, change the scale. Do not copy. Reinterpret.<\/p>

\u201cI extracted the stitch, enlarged it, and scattered it. The impression is similar, but the result is entirely different. Noon embroidery is a personal interpretation of a long-standing tradition.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Summer 1997: the first pieces, the first embroiderer<\/h2>

To produce the first pieces, embroiderers capable of maintaining the required level of precision must be found. Val\u00e9rie Barkowski activates the medina network. She reaches an association of women introduced to artisanal embroidery<\/strong> by Moroccan Catholic nuns.<\/p>

The first embroiderer is called Rabea. She lives in Dar Bacha, a stone\u2019s throw from what would become the V.Barkowski boutique. She walks with difficulty, with a malformation. They do not speak the same language. But the first sample she delivers is impeccable: the stars are small, perfect, regularly irregular. Both sides identical. Not a single thread protrudes.<\/p>

Then Rabea revealed that of the sum paid by the association, only 32% was given to her. The discovery was brutal: an institution presenting itself as protective was siphoning off the wages of its own workers. This was the first lesson in a reality that would take years to fully unfold – that of intermediaries who capture a share of the artisans’ work, sometimes under the guise of charity, sometimes even within the team. Employees of the workshop, better paid than the embroiderers, demanded a commission from them in exchange for orders. This continued for years before being discovered.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a9 Tania Panova<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From one embroiderer to five hundred<\/h2>

This first contact opens up a network. The medina\u2019s embroiderers work from home; it is a Moroccan social reality: for women whose family obligations limit travel, home-based work provides access to an income of their own, in a country where women\u2019s role remains, in some circles, confined to the domestic sphere.<\/p>

Once the first women are found, dozens more follow. Each embroiderer works at home, at her own pace. The Marrakech textile workshop<\/strong> receives, checks, assembles. In the busiest periods, up to five hundred embroiderers work simultaneously for the brand.<\/p>

Each embroiderer produces at her own pace, in her own style. Which creates a logistical constraint: a client order must be embroidered by one and the same person to ensure the piece\u2019s visual coherence. Slowness is part of the system.<\/p>

The workshop now operates on a smaller scale, with the same exacting standards and techniques.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a9 Tania Panova<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Twenty-nine years of a collection: what has changed, what remains<\/h2>

The Noon collection<\/strong> has evolved. The pattern has grown over the years, and this change in scale has a direct technical consequence: the double-sided Fez embroidery<\/strong>, characteristic of the original technique, becomes more difficult to apply to larger formats. Current pieces are embroidered on one side only. The design remains identical, the precision intact; it is the scale of the pattern that makes reversible work impractical at these dimensions.<\/p>

The collection now covers hand-embroidered bed linen,<\/strong>duvet covers, sheets, pillowcases, and embroidered table linen<\/strong>, tablecloths, placemats, napkins. Always in white mercerized combed cotton poplin for bed linen, a coarser cotton for table linen, and linen available upon request. The embroidery colors are infinite: solid tones or multicolored assortments from our collections, or even a color straight from a client’s imagination who provides us with their Pantone.<\/p>

What does not change: the stitch itself, the gesture, the hand. And the growing difficulty of finding embroiderers able to sustain it. The savoir-faire is passed on less. Wedding trousseaux\u2014the traditional space where women embroidered for months, surrounded by their mother and aunts\u2014are now embroidered externally, or replaced by machine embroidery. Embroiderers trained in the exact technique of the Noon collection become rarer each year.<\/p>

\u201cTwenty-nine years later, Noon embroidery is still as loved and purchased. But I can see the tradition being lost. The stitch itself changes. That is why each piece takes the time it takes\u2014and why that time cannot be reduced.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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