The tanneries Chouwara Morocco

Morocco’s Trendsetting Destination The tanneries Chouwara

There is a compulsive fascination about the tanneries Chouwara, the biggest in Fez and the most striking sight in the Medina. Every morning, when the tanneries are at their most active, cascades of water pour through holes that were once the windows of houses, hundreds of skins lie spread out on the rooftops to dry, while amid the vats of dye and pigeon dung (the white vats at the back), an unbelievably Gothic fantasy is enacted as tanners treat the hides.

Brief Information about The tanneries Chouwara Morocco

This “innovation” and the occasional rinsing machine aside, there can have been little change here since the sixteenth century, when Fez replaced Córdoba as the pre-eminent city of leather production. As befits such an ancient system, the ownership is also intricately feudal: the foremen run a hereditary guild and the workers pass down their specific jobs from generation to generation.