Color....a bohemian affair

You might call us bohemian in the way that we love color thrown together.......

I remember disembarking by the side of the creek, at the foot of the souk in old Dubai – ready to breathe it all in and forgetting I was heartbroken; the exotic air, the stifling afternoon sun, my skin glistening from sweat under airy, light cotton.  The warm stream of spices from the stalls creating an olfactory whirlpool, the soft 22 carat gold, chains upon chains draped in the windows, that seemed to melt in the heat and appear almost radiant orange, the shuffle and pounding of human traffic – it was intoxicating and one of those moments that floats in the memory because your mind is so enthralled and your sight is so vivid.

And so too in the "red city" of old Marrakech, where the souks are more demanding – come in and take a look they persist.  Startling licorice colors and crafts, leather, ceramics, lamps.....the winding souks, where you can lose a day..... a week.......where you fumble in bartering......but fall in love with every color; each shade of the color a truer version of itself.








All images © SisterBatik

I brought these wonderful color dyes back with me to England - including a pot of the Marrakech red and Marjorelle blue (made famous as the color chosen by the artist Jacques Marjorelle to elucidate all the built features in his famed garden in Marrakech - later maintained by the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent).

The Marjorelle blue led us in our early creative experimentation - tie dying plain cotton we had previously sewn into shopping totes - and the earliest items we made to sell.  And so the rest, as they say, is history as we continue creating.

NB Marjorelle blue - is similarly Yves Klein Blue or International Klein blue if searching for it.  Interesting fact; it is outside the gamut of computer and photographic display and therefore can never be truelly represented outside of witnessing it personally.