MOROCCO IN ALL-BUSINESS MODE...SORT OF

LE MAROC VERSION 99% TRAVAIL... 

The bay of Tangier upper right with southern Spain on the left

My business partner and I are off to Morocco for 2 weeks tomorrow.

This time again we'll really have a lot to do. We are going straight there with none of the usual fun detours through Paris. 
This time it's strictly business. 
We'll be putting the final touches to the Moroccan part of our soon-to-be-launched line of accessories and home textiles

In Tangier, we need to make sure our sample collection is being woven according to our directions, that our briefs for color, size and details are strictly followed.

I said all business? Well almost... 

We do plan to have a little fun. 

We will of course visit our favorite haunts like the Salon Bleu and the Hotel Minza (this post) for a tall freshly squeezed orange juice or a nice tea break, and the funky Cafe Abdou (this post) and we will of course have lunch at our new favorite lunch-with-wifi spot, the Café du Cinéma Rif or on the terrace of the Women's Association Darna. 

In Marrakesh we will oversee the embroidered pieces that are part of our line and bring last minute changes if need be.

We plan to do a little more research: new sources and hopefully a few new fabrics (a big challenge in Morocco it seems) and, who knows, a few new finds just waiting to be redesigned by us to fit in our Abanja line.

Samples need to be finished, labeled, packaged and ready to be taken back with us and we need to plan carefully to ensure that production will go smoothly after we leave...you know what they say: "the best laid plans of mice and men..."

We also want to photograph parts of our line in the country to add a little personality to our future website. This time my son Kevin, our guardian angel, a genius at this sort of thing and a great photographer, will design and create our site. The fact that he lives in Australia does not seem to faze him, but it's one very pesky inconvenience for us as our very lean and mean "start-up size" budget will not allow us to fly him in as Vogue, say, might do with Peter Lindberg; so, we will have to do all the shoots ourselves. Where there is a will...

As usual, we will stay at our favorite place, Riad Awa, but with just 2 days in Marrakesh, there will not be a lot of spare time for the fun places we love to visit there like the crazy "zoo" that is the shoe shop Artika or the wonderful shops in the Zone Industrielle. 
At the very least we will certainly make time for a nice dinner somewhere; Marrakesh is not lacking in that department.

images flickr, tissusetartisansdumonde, maison.deco, cinema.blogs.ipag, riadawa


Such is the life of the daring entrepreneur. 
Could be worse.

au revoir.