What is Yves Saint Laurent's connection to Marrakech?

Yves Saint Laurent's bond with Marrakech is one of the loveliest threads of the city's modern story, and it is the reason one of its most visited sites exists at all. The French couturier first came to Marrakech in 1966 with his partner Pierre Bergé, and by his own account the city overwhelmed him — the colour, the light, the geometry of the medina. He said it taught him about colour in a way Paris never had. He and Bergé bought a home here and returned for decades; Marrakech became his creative sanctuary and second home.

The centrepiece of the connection is the Jardin Majorelle. This botanical garden, with its famous electric-cobalt villa, was created from the 1920s by the French painter Jacques Majorelle, but by the late 1970s it had fallen into neglect and was threatened with demolition for development. In 1980, Saint Laurent and Bergé bought it and rescued it, restoring the garden and the building over years and opening it to the public. That distinctive shade of blue even has a name now — 'Majorelle Blue' — and the garden of bamboo, cacti, and lily ponds is a genuine oasis.

Next door, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech opened in 2017 in a striking modern building, dedicated to his life and work and displaying pieces from his archives. Together with the garden and the small Berber Museum on the same grounds, it makes one of the most rewarding cultural half-days in the city. I do warn guests that it is extremely popular — book the Majorelle and museum tickets online in advance and go early, because the queues and crowds in high season are real and the garden is more magical when it is quiet.

The most poignant detail is the ending. When Saint Laurent died in Paris in 2008, his ashes were scattered in the rose garden of his Marrakech villa, the Villa Oasis adjacent to the Majorelle, and a memorial to him stands within the garden grounds. So the connection is not just a fashionable footnote — the city he loved is, quite literally, his final resting place. For anyone interested in design, art, or simply a beautiful and meaningful corner of Marrakech, it is a story worth knowing before you walk through that blue gate.