Born in northern France, Serge Lutens’ has carved a formidable path through the decades – as a photographer, hair and make-up artist, fashion designer and perfumer. Now residing in Morocco, he has spent over three decades building a monumental palace in the nation’s capital of Marrakech. W Magazine visited his incredible home, and Christopher Bagley spoke to this visionary creator…

Located in the heart of Marrakech’s medina, Serge Lutens’ house contains several sitting rooms like this one. Lutens designed virtually everything here, including the wall and ceiling carvings, the mosaics, the lamps and the pattern on the velvet banquettes. “You could call it an obsession,” says Lutens of the house, which has been under construction for the past 35 years.

As massive and magnificent as the house is, Lutens, who is famously reclusive, has shown it to hardly anyone. In fact, he doesn’t even sleep in it; he spends most of his time in a small studio outside of town. The house “chased me out,” he says. Here, a dining room, in which he never dines. The works on the wall are by Paul Jouve; the table is Lutens’ design.

The entrance to Lutens’ laboratory, where he sometimes does research for his fragrances, many of which are inspired by the musks and spices of Morocco. For the intricate Moorish patterns on the walls and ceilings, Lutens drew inspiration from medieval North African designs he found in books.

Serge Lutens in a courtyard with his chief houseman, Rachid. At one point Lutens had more than 500 people working on the house. “I felt like the director of the pyramid at Cheops,” he recalls.

The main patio is planted with brigmansia, tuberose and datura. Botanical influences are prominent in Lutens designs for the house, as well as in his fragrances. “The real great perfumers are not perfumers,” Lutens says. “They are the bees, the winds, the rivers and other things that carry and mix scents in space.”

The office, with a Paul Jouve drawing and a pair of 19th century Syrian chairs that Lutens found at a Paris antiques shop. Now that the house is mostly complete, Lutens is tempted to abandon it forever and move to a small, Spartan maid’s room somewhere. His friend Anjelica Huston doesn’t find the idea so far-fetched. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Serge’s next home were a little yurt,” she says.

In another sitting room, the walls are lined with Lutens’ collection of antique Berber artifacts, including fibulae, the ornate silver clothing fasteners that he started buying by the dozens. “Soon every antique dealer in Morocco knew Serge was looking for fibulae,” says Lutens’ associate Patrice Nagel. “So they scoured the country for more—and sold them at a huge markup, of course.”

Throughout the house, there are stained glass windows inspired by medieval Moorish designs. Lutens was fixated on getting every detail right: It took a team of 10 workers about seven years to complete one tiny room, a domed sitting area next to the hammam. He wonders whether, like a writer who’s terrified of finishing his novel, he has sometimes invented excuses to stave off the project’s inevitable end. “There are times where you just have to be completely occupied,” he says, “otherwise you fall apart.”

Discover the first costume illustrations and a sneak preview of Le Duc d’Albe opera, now showing at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp. The Antwerp-based designers A.F. VANDEVORST, were enlisted to create the costumes for this latest season of the 1839 opera in the French language, written by Gaetano Donizetti. The story is set in Antwerp in 1573.

Until May 25th, 2012.

Photography © Boy Kortekaas

COCCODRILLO are delighted to announce that the “COCCODRILLO FOR VERSO” shoe salon
will open at Verso, Antwerp for the Autumn Winter 2012-13 season in July 2012.

This dedicated space in the heart of Antwerp will feature a glamorous selection of footwear selected by COCCODRILLO’s Geert Bruloot & Eddy Michiels for VERSO, including:

DOLCE&GABBANA – DSQUARED2 – FENDI – GIORGIO ARMANI -
GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI – JIL SANDER – SALVATORE FERRAGAMO – TODS – VALENTINO
and more young and designer brands.

The space will be realised by Glenn Sestig Architects, Antwerp.

Please keep reading for more updates in the coming months.

VERSO, Lange Gasthuisstraat 11, 2000 Antwerp BELGIUM
Tel. 03 226 92 92
Mon-Fri 10.00 – 18.00
Sat 10.00 – 18.30

Check out MR.HARE, one of COCCODRILLO’s Belgian exclusives – “Shoes you can attach some romance to” direct from London, England!

The Turquoise “Vonnegut” sneakers (above) are in-store now in the mens’ boutique.

“When I first started telling people back in 2008 that I was starting a shoe company, most people assumed I meant sneakers, which I always considered slightly racist. Yeah I was a sneaker head and yeah I was into hip hop, but like everybody else my sneaker needs were being taken care of by some of the biggest companies in the world with some of the biggest R&D departments. The world was crying out for one more sneaker company, right? So once I got my smart shoe thing down I started looking at my favourite sneaks. My Jordans, My Saucony’s and my NewB’s, my AF1s, my dunks, my 90s and my 100s and thinking how does little old me and my Italian genius’ of shoe compete?

We decided to start where they all started. Back in the 70s when runners were sexy and you could build a shoe in your backyard without the need for mass mechanisation and cheap labour, except this time we were going to use the finest calf leathers known to man in the most sophisticated colours so you can where your sneakers even when you are kicking it for the man !! Now some of you will say that’s a lot of money for sneaks when normal ones are just as good. Others amongst you will know that simply just isn’t true. Not trying to be the biggest. Just the FRESHest.”

His ‘August’ Spring Summer 2012 lookbook was shot on location in 29 Palms, California by Marley Lohr.

Each season, PRADA teams up with Rem Koolhaas’ design thinktank AMO to produce a spectacular graphic representation of the womens and mens collections. For Spring Summer 2012, Mrs. Prada thought of the two obsessions of Italian men: women and cars. Then combined them! The results were a stunning perversion of leather and lace – truly garments and accessories to stop traffic!

The MOMU fashion museum of Antwerp unveils it’s latest exhibition this evening, entitled “LIVING FASHION, Women’s Daily Wear 1750-1950″.

“In the 19th century, the growing social importance of the middle classes brought with it a new group of wealthy citizens who wanted to show off their status through their clothing and behaviour. This stimulated consumption and fashionable activities amongst the women in these social circles. Travelling, sports, walking and shopping became new forms of passing leisure time, all requiring specific apparel. In addition to the clothes they wore, the organization of their days also followed fashion trends. Mornings were for indoor activities, the afternoons for visits and ‘outdoor activities’, and each moment of the day had its own particular dress code.
Taking part in ‘high fashion’ increasingly became a must for an ever-growing group of consumers, but these women did not simply let themselves be dictated by fashion. They also helped form fashion through their own changing customs and living habits. As they still do today, consumers were frugal and creative with ever-changing fashions. Dresses were remade and sometimes completely transformed to fit the new, fashionable silhouettes. Re-using fabrics was perfectly normal, even for the upper classes.
On the basis of historical silhouettes from the extensive apparel collection of Jacoba de Jonge, now almost entirely incorporated in the MoMu collection, we sketch a picture of the relationship between the fashion ideals of the day and the clothing that people were actually wearing.”

LIVING FASHION. Women’s Daily Wear 1750-1950. From the Jacoba de Jonge Collection runs from Wednesday 21st of March till Sunday 12th of August 2012.

Check out a sneak preview below of some of the historical dresses, from the new MOMU Blog:

Get in the mood for a trip to merry ol’ England to discover YAYOI KUSAMA’s Tate Modern exhibition, in these spotty snakeskin pumps from LANVIN SS12!

“The nine decades of Yayoi Kusama’s life have taken her from rural Japan to the New York art scene to contemporary Tokyo, in a career in which she has continuously innovated and re-invented her style. Well-known for her repeating dot patterns, her art encompasses an astonishing variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance and immersive installation.

Since 1977 Kusama has lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution, and much of her work has been marked with obsessiveness and a desire to escape from psychological trauma. In an attempt to share her experiences, she creates installations that immerse the viewer in her obsessively charged vision of endless dots and nets or infinitely mirrored space.”

9 February – 5 June 2012 at the Tate Modern, London.

COCCODRILLO shares T Magazine’s Daily Shoe posts from Paris Fashion Week Autumn Winter 2012-13.

First up, this stunning hand-painted “horn” soled pilgrim pump from DRIES VAN NOTEN…