{"id":9100,"date":"2025-12-01T16:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/dar-kawa-a-confidential-riad-in-marrakech\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T14:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T12:03:16","slug":"dar-kawa-a-confidential-riad-in-marrakech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/dar-kawa-a-confidential-riad-in-marrakech\/","title":{"rendered":"Dar Kawa, a confidential riad in Marrakech"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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How this confidential riad in Marrakech gave birth to a home linens brand<\/span><\/h2>\n

When I bought Dar Kawa in 1996, I was simply looking for a vacation home where I could spend a few weeks each year. The guesthouse came later, as did the linens. What would become Dar Kawa- an intimate riad in Marrakech – thus began elsewhere: with the search for a fabric, then for an embroiderer, and finally for an entire craft. <\/p>\n

At that time, I was living in Moscow. I worked as an art dealer, while trying to write a book about Russian and Soviet artists, and I was restoring a datcha for which I was already having the linens I needed made. In 1993, in Moscow, there was little home linen to be found. Or Gianni Versace. Not exactly my style. I found linen by the meter, then mammys in the countryside who agreed to interpret the patchworks I had designed. <\/p>\n

In Marrakech, I continued in exactly the same way. We rented a first empty riad and I discovered that the situation was the same: no cotton home linens, no handmade home linens as I imagined them. I looked for fabric by the meter, then an embroiderer. The story began like that. <\/p>\n

The bed linens and the first bath towels edged with pompoms<\/a> were created for me. The restoration of Dar Kawa began almost immediately, with Quentin Wilbaux<\/b>. We took our time. The house gradually revealed its volumes, its proportions, its light. <\/p>\n

Working through the archives, I realized something I had never seen so clearly: between 1996 and 1999, Dar Kawa and the collections were born at exactly the same moment. While the riad was taking shape, I was developing the first textiles that would give birth, a few years later, to the V. Barkowski brand. What would become a signature of Moroccan artisanal embroidery was still just a series of trials made to dress a house. <\/p>\n

The prototypes, the embroidery trials, the first weavings, the rejected pieces, the samples made to understand a technique gradually invaded the house. What do you do with all of this when you don’t yet have clients? You live with it. You avoid waste. You wash, you observe, you sometimes modify. The house furnished itself this way, at the pace of research, and became a textile observatory in Marrakech before its time, without knowing it. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a9Nicolas Tosi - 1996<\/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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Several lives, one house<\/h2>

At the end of the work, in autumn 1999, Dar Kawa<\/a> opened its doors. I didn’t really have time to realize what was happening. <\/p>

The night before the first Belgian journalists arrived, we were still working late into the night. The next morning, they discovered Dar Kawa for the first time. So did I, in a way. <\/p>

They came to see a house that had just been restored and, for the very first time, a table set with V. Barkowski table linens. I had no idea what we had actually accomplished. I had butterflies in my stomach. The adrenaline. The feeling that three years of work were about to be examined in the smallest detail. <\/p>

Arriving for breakfast, I discovered that the table was set with paper towel instead of the linens I had prepared. I think my heart stopped for a few seconds. The women of the house burst out laughing, removed the paper towel and finally set out the table linens. Today, this scene makes me smile. It captures that period when everything was still spontaneous, joyful, innocent. We were seeking nothing more than to do well. <\/p>

Between 1999 and 2003, Dar Kawa lived simply. Quentin sometimes offered the house through Marrakech M\u00e9dina. A few travelers stayed there. The first collection shoots were organized there with Tania Panova. Marrakech was still very different. Tourists could still be counted on the fingers of one hand. Houses opened differently. <\/p>

In 2003, I finally moved into Dar Kawa. For the first time, I truly lived there. The new collections naturally took their place in the house. <\/p>

In 2008, a new idea emerged: opening Dar Kawa as a guesthouse. At that time, I was taking on multiple assignments in India, where I was leading the creation of the textile brand Bandit Queen<\/a>. The house often remained empty. <\/p>

My response was immediate: no. I wasn’t capable of doing that. I love hosting, but I couldn’t imagine my house becoming the living space of people I didn’t know. My books were in the library. My paintings were on the walls. My objects told the story of my travels. There was also something very simple: I couldn’t get used to the idea of strangers sleeping in my bed, in my sheets. In a hotel, this question doesn’t arise. In my home, it does. <\/p>

I finally agreed to try. Dar Kawa remained alive during my absences, the team continued to work and the house kept its rhythm, intact: the books, the paintings, the objects remained where they had always been. It’s in this spirit\u2014receiving at home rather than managing an establishment, refusing large booking platforms, building a personal relationship with each traveler\u2014that Dar Kawa became, for many, that confidential riad spoken of more by word of mouth than in search engines. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Cover Nomad at Home by Hilary Robertson<\/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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\u00a9 Delphine Warin<\/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<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A house that continues to live<\/span><\/h1>

When I look at Dar Kawa today, I don’t see a finished project. I see a house that has accompanied me for nearly thirty years, with all the memories, people and stages of my life. It has evolved greatly without ever becoming another house. <\/p>

It saw the birth of the first home linen collections. It accompanied Bandit Queen, the collaborations with artisans and new ideas. It evolves at the same time as I do. <\/p>

Is it a house? Yes. <\/p>

Is it a guesthouse? Yes, because that’s the name we give to someone who opens the doors of their home. <\/p>

Is it a place of creation? Also. <\/p>

The rooms taught me things that a studio could never have taught me. Seeing a sheet used hundreds of times, observing how a fabric ages, understanding what withstands time or what needs to be improved: all of this nourished my work on each timeless home linen collection we develop today. The house became a full-scale laboratory, a place where objects are used as they will be later in the homes of the people who buy them. <\/p>

I have never separated these different dimensions. I work as I live. <\/p>

While the house continued to evolve, Marrakech was changing too. When I bought Dar Kawa, the medina was very different from the one we know today. Houses rarely sold, visitors were few, and one sometimes had the feeling of living in a village. Thirty years later, Marrakech is no longer the same city. New neighborhoods have appeared, tourism has evolved, travel habits too. Dar Kawa has weathered all these transformations while remaining faithful to its own rhythm – the slower one of a Moroccan artisanal craft that cannot be rushed. <\/p>

Looking back, I see that I have never done anything quickly. Taking time. Observing a place before transforming it. Trusting artisans. Creating objects meant to be used. Receiving as one receives at home. Working as one lives. It’s probably this consistency that has shaped Dar Kawa since day one, and that continues to shape each piece of handmade home linen we create in Marrakech. <\/p>

Many travelers tell me they had the feeling of being received at someone’s home. That’s probably the best definition I can give of this confidential riad: a house that has never really stopped being a house. <\/p>\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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\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\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How this confidential riad in Marrakech gave birth to a home linens brand When I bought Dar Kawa in 1996, I was simply looking for a vacation home where I could spend a few weeks each year. The guesthouse came later, as did the linens. What would become Dar Kawa- an intimate riad in Marrakech …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[231],"tags":[533,534,416],"class_list":["post-9100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marrakech-whispers","tag-marrakech","tag-quentin-wilbaux","tag-savoir-faire-artisanal"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/dar-kawa-riad-patio-photo-nicole-francesca-manfron.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16189,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions\/16189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}