Fez

Walking into Fez is like being on holiday and browsing through a Moroccon market. The shop is crammed with beautiful crockery and glasses, accessories and fabrics. Staff are extremely helpful and the prices very competitive considering the high quality of the goods.
Excellent for gift shopping, or to treat yourself if like me you just can’t ever have too many pretty plates

I love the vivid clean colours of the furniture, of the glassware and pottery, and of the clothes that I see when I visit Omar Serroukh’s shop. To give myself something more fun to wear than the grey and black and pastel of English clothing, I’ve bought men’s Moroccan tops here: 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. Like the ones in the photo at
. These known in English as Aladdin trousers or harem pants, and in Arabic as sirwal are also practical. Their pockets are deep, so 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 Wolvercote, 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 buy 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