📍Villa Oasis, Jardin Majorelle, Rue Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech 40090, Morocco
1980 – 2008“I grew up in Oran, on the coast of French Algeria, a shy, slender boy in a comfortable family; I designed dresses for my sisters' paper dolls and was bullied at school, and I escaped into drawing and the theatre. At twenty-one I took over the house of Dior. Pierre Bergé and I first came to Marrakech in 1966 and fell under its spell — the light, the colour, the souks. In 1980 we learned that the garden created by the painter Jacques Majorelle was to be sold to developers, so we bought it to save it, restored it, and moved into its villa, which I renamed Villa Oasis. The garden is a world of cactuses, palms, bamboo and bougainvillea around pools, its buildings painted the intense cobalt that Majorelle invented and called his own blue. I came here to rest and to design my collections; the colours of Morocco, its fabrics and its jewellery flowed into my work for decades. The Berber jewellery and costumes we gathered over the years are now shown in the museum at the garden's heart. After I was gone, my ashes were scattered in the garden I loved.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today