Bright colours, unusual clothes, argan oil, and coffee

I love the vivid clean colours â€" of the furniture, of the bright red and green and blue tea glasses and the pottery, and of the clothes â€" that I see when I visit Omar Serroukh's shop. To give myself something that's more fun to wear than the grey and black and pastel of English clothing, I've bought men's tops here: Moroccan tunic shirts with wide flared sleeves and deep V necks embroidered along the edges, the embroidery black or white against a vibrant blue or turquoise body colour. They're comfortable; and even more comfortable are the voluminously baggy Moroccan “qandrissi”, trousers where the crotch is down by your knees. These â€" known in English as Aladdin trousers or harem pants, and in Arabic as sirwal or سِرÙ'Ù^'َال â€" are also practical. Their pockets are so deep that I never lose keys down seats as I used to when I wore normal trousers. They're deep enough that, when I found a box of windfall apples in olvercote, a village near Oxford last Autumn, I was able to carry it home to Oxford: half the box in each pocket. Just the job if you're a poacher and have to squirrel away a surreptitious pheasant. As well as clothes, I like Omar's argan oil. This is made from the nuts of the argan tree, which apparently grows only in Morocco. It's an excellent aftershave to soothe one's chin after scraping away with a less-than-razor-sharp Mach 3, and you can also eat it: it's said to be rich in antioxidants, vitamin E, and essential fatty acids. In the shop last time, I sat and watched an entertainments manager negotiating for the hire of a Moroccan fountain. An interesting thing to do while enjoying the coffee that Omar had made for me. "Fez" is a great shop. Jocelyn Ireson-Paine

Jocelyn Ireson-Paine - 22/01/2011 | report this review