The Artisan’s Store

Artisans Brahim El Mansouri, Mohssine Benjalloun, Rachida Ousbigh, Kenza Oulaghda, Mustapha Chaouai, work with designer Matthew Long to design Anou’s new artisan store in Fes.

We launched Anou many years ago in order to rethink how the craft economy in Morocco should work. What has become increasingly clear since those early days is that to create a craft economy that works for all artisans we would eventually have to rethink the role of retail as well. Now after a year of planning we’re incredibly excited to announce that we will be opening Morocco’s first artisan run store in Fes in early 2020, and then a second store in Marrakech in 2021.

Our vision isn’t just to create another store. In fact, there almost seems to be an inverse correlation between the number of new stores in the old cities of Marrakech and Fes and the number of artisans that still live and work there. Instead, our vision is to create a space that reflects the wider values of The Anou Cooperative and ensure that authentic artisans will always have a place in the increasingly gentrified medinas of Fes and Marrakech. 

To realize this, we are aiming to build a creative space where customers can not only buy products directly from artisans but explore craft first hand and learn about the people, design, materials and processes that go into everything displayed. The space will enable visitors to sign up for workshops with artisans or schedule visits to artisan workshops across the country. Further, the stores will be staffed by artisans from the Anou community because who else would be better to learn about a product than the artisan who made it. 

The store will be directly connected to Anou’s artisan office, so customers can see first hand the work artisans do to make Anou work. The office will be built so that customers and designers can sit down and collaborate with artisans to create new ideas and products. Equally exciting the store will also be connected to Anou’s dye house and yarn shop so that all visitors can see the materials being made first hand while having every color imaginable at their fingertips.

We hope that through the store we will be better able to educate visitors on craft and increase sales for artisans. Similarly, we hope that the store will serve as a live training ground for artisans so that in the near future Anou will be able to send highly capable artisans abroad to run pop up shops and directly communicate with customers no matter what country they are in.  

Ultimately, by pursuing this vision we hope we can create an artisan run store that all artisans are proud to be a part of. We’re excited to have you all on this journey in making this a reality. 

Realizing our upcoming Fes space would not be possible without Cafe Clock. Cafe Clock has provided Anou rooms and the roof of a riad that is currently under renovation. We are also indebted to Matthew Long, a furniture and store designer, who graciously volunteered to help design the space for Anou. 

Over the coming months follow us on Instagram and Facebook as we chart the progress until the opening day of Morocco’s first artisan store. And as always help us spread the word about Anou this holiday season as each purchase not only benefits artisans, but makes visions like this a reality.