Morocco's Indigenous Fibers and Dyes Booklet

Morocco's Indigenous Fibers and Dyes - A guide to the raw materials of Moroccan textiles

Every Moroccan textile starts long before the loom: with a flock on a mountain pasture, a root dug from the earth, a crystal of alum from an Atlas vein. This Field Note traces those beginnings. It introduces the fibers Moroccan textiles have been made from, the plants and minerals that gave them their traditional colors, and how these materials are used, traded and sold today. Inside you will find

• The fibers: wool from mountain, plateau and oasis flocks, goat and camel hair, cotton, esparto, palm, hemp and silk, plus the truth behind "cactus silk" and the gold and silver thread called sqalli
• The dyes: madder, woad, henna, weld, saffron, chamomile, pomegranate, walnut and oak bark, and the murex snails of Mogador island that once supplied imperial purple
• Fixing color: alum, iron, tannin and the limestone burned in kilns near Sefrou
• A visit to the attar: the herbalist's shop, where dyes, remedies and charms share the same shelves
• Dye today: what changed when synthetic color arrived, and where natural dyeing continues

The Field Note draws on years of studio visits, conversations and fieldwork with artisans across Morocco. 

Format: 20-page illustrated PDF. Each copy is personalized with the buyer's name and email and is for personal use.