Atika Boutique
This boutique is best known for its shoes, especially soft leather moccasins in every shade of the rainbow.
2 Best Places to Shop in Marrakesh, Morocco
Marrakesh is a shopper's bonanza, full of the very rugs, handicrafts, and clothing you see in the pages of magazines back home. Most bazaars are in the souk, just north of Djemâa el Fna and spread through a seemingly never-ending maze of alleys. Together, they sell almost everything imaginable and are highly competitive. Bargaining here is hard, and you can get up to 80% discounts. So on your first exploration, it's often a better idea to simply wander and take in the atmosphere than to buy. You can check guideline prices in some of the more well-to-do parts of town, which display fixed price tags for every object.
There are a number of crafts and souvenir shops on Avenue Mohammed V in Guéliz, as well as some very good Moroccan antiques stores and designer shops that offer a distinctly modern take on Moroccan clothing, footwear, and interior decoration. These allow buyers to browse at their leisure, free of the souk's intense pressures. Many have fixed prices, with only 10% discounts after haggling. Most of these stores are happy to ship your purchases overseas. Bazaars generally open between 8 and 9 am and close between 8 and 9 pm; stores in Guéliz open a bit later and close a bit earlier, some breaking for lunch. Some bazaars in the medina close on Friday, the Muslim holy day. In Guéliz, most shops are closed on Sunday.
Souk des Babouches (Slipper Souk)
Best approached by taking the main left fork onto Souk el-Attarine, where it branches off from Rue Souk el Kebir, and then continuing north for about 150 yards, the Souk Principal des Babouches—also called Souk Smata—is on the right-hand side and is filled with the namesake babouches, pointed leather slippers so beloved of Moroccans. The small doorway opens up to an enormous emporium with examples in every color imaginable.
It can be hard to judge the proper value of these fairy-tale leather slippers, because price depends on so many things, such as the thickness of the sole, the number of layers, the presence or absence of a stepped heel, and of course the decoration. Use your nose, but be warned that a fair price can vary from 60 DH to 400 DH, depending on quality.
Look for the tiny wool boutique on the left as you come to the arch before the right turn for the babouches market. It's on the way to the Souk des Teinturiers (Dyers' Souk). You can see men rolling out wool to make into fetching striped handbags, and, best of all, into small balls, and looping them up into the most unusual necklaces going.
