M E E T THE TEAM Contributors Meet some of the talented people behind this month s issue TRISTAN RUTHERFORD EUAN FERGUSON MARIA CORTE STEFFEN ROTH Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent was as French as they come, counting Christan Dior as his mentor and Catherine Deneuve as his muse. But did you know the one place he could really relax? Marrakech especially the Medina. The local traders simply didn t read Vogue, says this writer for The Times and The Guardian, who penned our piece on p68 about YSL s love for this city. As thousands file into tents ready to chug foamy pitchers of beer during Oktoberfest, this Shortlist, Time Out and Metropolitan scribe says you don t have to travel to Germany to get in on the action. Beer tourism is definitely a thing, says drinking fan Euan, who on p87 looks at the new wave of brewery bars conjuring up similar vibes all over Europe. What if you could blame your jetsetting ways on genetics? Well you can (kind of). The DRD4-7R or wanderlust gene that s tied to novelty-seeking could explain why some of us love to travel, says this illustrator for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, who created visuals for our story on p24. Only 20% are said to have it. I bet I m one of them. I ll never look at Angela Merkel in the same way again, says photographer Roth, who captured the big personalities and even bigger agendas on the new burlesque scene that s taking Berlin by storm for our story on p58. Performers here are sexy, but there s a surprisingly political side to their shows, says the Observer and Der Spiegel snapper. THE TEAM Editor Jonny Ensall Art Director Mat Wiggins Deputy Editor Sarah Neish Associate Editor Victoria Beardwood Designer Isabella Fernandes Sub-Editors Liz Granirer, Maresa Manara Studio Manager Debora Amato Studio Assistant Lauren Clarke Production Manager Antonia Ferraro Print and Logistics Pete Murphy Pre-press Matt Lutkin easyjet Brand and Content Manager Jacinda Alderson Book your flights at easyjet.com ADVERTISING Sales Director and Group Advertising Director Steve Rowbotham Advertising Director Phil Castle For advertising phil.castle@ink-global.com European Sales Team Jamie Barnish, Tara Brady, Manuela Festa, Nishan Gumani, Luke Harris, George Hughes, Macarena Jimenez Sales recruitment joinus@ink-global.com Contact firstname.surname@ink-global.com Chief Executives Michael Keating and Simon Leslie Chief Operating and Financial Offi cer Jim Campbell Editorial Director Kerstin Zumstein Design Director Jamie Trendall easyjet TRAVELLER is published on behalf of easyjet by Ink, Blackburn House, Blackburn Road, London NW6 1RZ, ink-global.com, email info@ink-global.com Editorial +44 (0)20 7625 0884 Advertising +44 (0)20 7625 0922 Read it online at traveller.easyjet/emagazine Ink. All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. All prices and data are correct at the time of publication. Opinions expressed in easyjet Traveller are not necessarily those of easyjet and easyjet does not accept responsibility for advertising content. Any pictures or transparencies supplied are at the owner s risk. Any mention of easyjet or use of the easyjet logo by any advertiser in this publication does not imply endorsement of that company, or its products or services by easyjet Airline Company. The paper in this magazine originates from timber that is sourced from responsibly managed forests, according to strict environmental, social and economic standards. The manufacturing mill has both FSC & PEFC certifi cation, and also ISO9001 and ISO14001 accreditation 008
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Our man in Marrakech Fifty years ago, Yves Saint Laurent visited Marrakech and fell head over heels for its Majorelle gardens. As a new YSL museum opens in the city, Tristan Rutherford tells a love story half a century in the making 069
It s 1966 and all that. In London, a man boots a football into the back of a net and wins his team the World Cup. In Milan, an unknown designer named Giorgio Armani starts a couture business. And, in Paris, something else extraordinary happens. One more of those moments on which history turns: the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent boards a plane bound for Africa. The Caravelle airliner containing Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé, skimmed the Sahara, arced over the snow-capped Atlas Mountains, then descended into Marrakech. The designer was desperate for a break. Aged 30, he d already spent a decade at the cutting edge of international fashion. The biannual collections and Champagne catwalks were taking their toll, as were the long nights partying with muses Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise at Studio 54. By the time he d put movie star Catherine Deneuve into a tuxedo (a masterstroke of female tailoring, he called it le smoking ) he was a hunted man, demanded at dinner parties from Tokyo to New York. Tough going. Hence why he and Bergé checked into La Mamounia a sultan s palace turned rococo hotel near the medina that s still open today. Bergé recalled to me that first bright morning in Marrakech: It was that Moroccan sun that probes every recess and corner. In a certain way, it decided our destiny. Bergé was flicking through a guidebook when he came across a mysterious botanical garden the Jardin Majorelle. It had been curated with 300 exotic plant species by French painter Jacques Majorelle in the 1920s, then abandoned on his death. What they discovered was a lost world of chokingly aromatic jasmine and light-blotting black bamboo that they could 070
PHOTOS ALAMY, GETTY, MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH (and would) spend years exploring a jungle that jarred so beautifully with Marrakech s dusty, medieval medina, it was love at first sight. The city became their bolthole and the gardens Saint Laurent s thinking space. He d stroll their paths with Marrakech s beautiful people: billionaires Paul and Talitha Getty, decorator Jacqueline Foissac and her young son, Quito Fierro. Life went on this way until 1980, by which time Marrakech had spilled out of the ochre old city walls and the Jardin Majorelle s bubbling fountains and citrus groves were to be concreted over to make way for a hotel. The only way for Saint Laurent and Bergé to save it was to purchase the garden and adjoining villa themselves, which they did, making it their onoff home for the next three decades. When Saint Laurent passed away in 2008, the gardens became one of Morocco s most popular attractions. But, from 19 October, they ll be vying for visitors attentions with the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech, parked like a Moorish ark on the lawn next door. It s Africa s biggest cultural opening this year, in every sense. Its vast 4,000m² of exhibition space will be used to showcase how Saint Laurent s legacy lives on in the city and how broadly Moroccan influences spread out from the designs he spent mornings sketching under the Jardin s carob trees. Quite simply, there s no YSL without Marrakech. Quito Fierro, the boy who knew Saint Laurent in the 1960s, is the Jardin s current general secretary. Yves would come every year in December and June to design his haute couture collections, he remembers. The garden had a big influence on him. Today s visitors can spot a YSL colour scheme at every turn: the bottle-green cacti, the violet bougainvillea, the blood-red stone. And that utterly unique cobalt colour, known as Majorelle Blue, that has since been infused into embroidery, scarves and soft leather satchels. The city became one of the few places where Saint Laurent could design in peace. Chattering birds quieted his soul. Cocktails in the long bar of the hotel La Mamounia under a ceiling hand-painted by Jacques Majorelle Aged 30, Saint Laurent had already spent a decade at fashion s cutting edge Clockwise from above Mr Fogg s upstairs Gin Parlour and Salon; the beef and bacon pie; choose from 300 gins Clockwise from top left Yves Saint Laurent with muses Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise on New Bond Street, 1969; a design for embroidery that borrows from Moroccan style; the new museum 071
himself stilled his senses. Drives were taken to the green chasm of Ourika Valley with Saint Laurent s faithful Chihuahuas in tow. Andy Warhol would pop by for dinner, still wearing a black polo neck, despite the blazing heat. People in the medina were not reading Vogue, says Fierro. Yves could browse the markets for inspiration without being recognised. Looking back on photos from the time, they show the Frenchman watching a snake charmer amid the bustle of Jemaa el- Fnaa square. He s dressed in a billowing white shirt, white flares and white tennis shoes with only a gold medallion to offset the tout-blanc look. While working at home he looks perfectly at ease in loose-fitting Moroccan dress. The djellaba robes, tarboosh hats and, in particular, babouche slippers he took back to Paris with him are as popular now as they ve ever been. L ike the man himself, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent is both classic and edgy. We didn t want Arabesque style, says Fayçal Tiaïba, who s managing the project. Instead, the curving brick structure plays games with space and light, with its grand entrances and floor-to-ceiling windows, while nodding more subtly to YSL s passions columns of cedar and oak come from his favourite Ourika Valley, for example. For the exterior, the architects, Studio KO, experimented with dozens of different Marrakech bricks to find a block of the perfect texture and colour. The result somewhere Visitors can spot a YSL colour scheme at every turn: bottle-green cacti, violet bougainvillea From above The famous blue of the Jardin Majorelle; a YSL collection board for the S/S 1988 couture season PHOTOS FONDATION PIERRE BERGÉ YVES SAINT LAURENT, PARIS, MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT MARRAKECH 072
PHOTOS ALAMY, REGINALD GREY *HOLIDAYS AVAILABLE ON ALL LANGUAGE WEBSITES. SEE P147 FOR T&CS From above Yves Saint Laurent in Jemaa el-fnaa market, Marrakech; exhibits inside the Musée Yves Saint Laurent between sand and spice is Marrakech all over. Imagine walking through the entrance, along a gangway that feels like a catwalk. The Moroccan sunlight pours through 4m-high windows. The drama builds like a Parisian hotels.easyjet.com Enjoy an Atlas Mountain view over your rooftop breakfast at Riad El Wiam, which is in Marrakech s historic centre. DESTINATION MARRAKECH easyjet.com/holidays* Three nights B&B at five-star Dar Al Assad, departing London Gatwick on 5 December, from 149pp. fashion show as you enter a cylindrical piazza, akin to a Marrakech riad, cut off from the city. If you look up, you cannot see another building, despite being in the heart of the town, says Tiaïba. Instead, you re fed into an exhibition space containing an onslaught of Polaroids, sketches and ephemera from Saint Laurent s career. The library is another treasure trove it covers the designer s Marrakech interests: global fashion, Arabian culture and botanical plants. The museum is a fitting tribute to Saint Laurent s ambition, but also to Pierre Bergé, who was there at the beginning, who supported YSL in his life and work, and who passed away in September 2017. Best of all are the striking haute couture outfits that Saint Laurent built his career on. A selection of them have been flown to Marrakech from Paris, mirroring his memorable journey five decades ago. Then as now, Saint Laurent s cross-cultural mix of frilly taffeta dresses and silken gandoura gowns will shock and inspire the fashion world. It s like 1966 all over again. museeyslmarrakech.com easyjet flies to Marrakech from 10 destinations. See our guide on page 142. easyjet.com 075