Sunday Escape - Jardin Majorelle Discovering the Eden of Marrakech

This week, Sunday Escape takes you to Morocco to discover the Majorelle Gardens, one of the most beautiful places in the world, which over the years has become a source of inspiration for Yves Saint Laurent.

About.

"Before Marrakech, everything was black. This city taught me what colors are and I embraced its light, its blatant contrasts and its intense inventions".

Thus tells Yves Saint Laurent his love for the Moroccan city, the same feeling he feels even when he sees the Majorelle gardens.

It remains so enchanted by "this oasis in which the colors of Matisse mingle with those of nature" to be decided, in 1980, together with his companion Pierre Bergé, to buy it.

"We were seduced by this oasis where colors used by Matisse were mixed with those of nature" - recalls Bergè - "And when we heard that the garden was to be sold and replaced by a hotel, we did everything we could to stop that project from happening. This is how we eventually became owners of the garden and of the villa.”

Over the years, this little Eden becomes an inexhaustible source of inspiration for the designer and the blue house, renamed Villa Oasis, is transformed into its favorite retreat.

The connection with the gardens grows so much with the passage of time that, at his death in 2008, the ashes of Saint Laurent are scattered on a rose garden inside the botanical garden.