Historical threads: Morocco's last brocade master

FEZ, Morocco - Abdelkader Ouazzani, the last of Morocco's brocade master weavers, has been repeating the same gestures for 63 years in his dilapidated workshop in the heart of the old city of Fez.

"This profession is vanishing. ... There were many craftsmen in Fez, but they all died and only memories remain," said the 79-year-old weaver, the last witness of a bygone era.

His skillful hands intricately create shimmering silk fabrics, enhanced with gold or silver thread, for bridal jewelry, designer creations or high-end furnishings.

His entire body engages in the delicate job, using a complex draw-loom mechanism made up of a large wooden frame topped with beams, rafters, blades, pulleys and counterweights.

His feet rest on the wooden pedals, his shoulders are bent forward, his arms move apart with each launch of the wooden shuttle.

"It's all a question of calculation, each thread takes its path: It's like mathematics," the old man said.

His work is both physical and meticulous: It takes an entire day to weave a meter of brocade.

"Not everybody is allowed to see that, it's very special. He is the last man working like that," explained a tour guide who has led a group of Thai tourists.

They are visiting on the recommendation of the wife of the head of a major Moroccan bank, herself a client of the workshop.

An article in the historical journal Hesperis, published in 1950 by the Institute of Higher Moroccan Studies, described the weaving of brocades from Fez as a tradition that "disappeared everywhere else in North Africa".

It said that the ancestral knowhow had its roots in the era of the Merinid sultans of the 13th century.

"In the 1950s, there were still four or five workshops left," said Mohamed Akhda, the guide in charge of the Thai guests.

"You are now in the last one left in the country."

Ouazzani said he can't find a young apprentice to take over his workshop. "People no longer want to learn this profession. No one cares," he said.

As fashions have changed, the wide, colorful belts that for centuries were the pride of the master weavers of Fes gradually stopped selling.

In the age of globalization, the final blow came with industrial-scale competition. In Fez, as elsewhere, some souvenir shops now sell low-end products that are machine woven abroad.

Ouazzani, on the other hand, works on commission for a clientele he describes as "the elite of the elite". His rare fabrics cost up to 5,000 dirhams per meter ($560), depending on the complexity of the patterns.

Agence France-Presse