Babouches and the Art of Moroccan Foot Flair

Morocco does a lot of things well. Tea? Poured from a scandalous height into glasses too hot to hold. Spices? Smuggled in your suitcase whether you want them or not. Markets? Chaotic symphonies of colour, noise and the occasional goat. But babouches? Now that’s where things get interesting. These aren’t just slippers. They’re a whole vibe. A lifestyle. A pointy-toed philosophy on how to shuffle through life with style, sass, and not a hint of arch support.

If you’ve ever wandered into a Moroccan souk (ideally lost and slightly sunburnt), you’ve probably tripped over a stack of babouches. Sometimes they’re heaped in little mountains. Other times, they spill off wooden carts, hanging like sleepy bats from ropes strung between shops. Yellow, red, turquoise, embroidered, beaded, minimalist, or mind-bendingly maximalist – babouches come in more flavours than a Marrakech smoothie stall. And that’s saying something.

Technically, babouches are leather slippers. But that’s a bit like saying the Taj Mahal is a house. Sure, you can wear them indoors. But they’re also made for strolling grandly to the corner cafe, or delivering dates to your neighbour while judging her couscous. Traditional ones are flat, backless, and elegantly tapered at the toe – the kind of footwear that says, “I have important opinions about mint tea temperature.”

In Morocco, babouches have been shuffling across tile floors since forever. The design traces its roots back centuries, possibly even to the Berbers and Arabs before them. Crafted from soft goat or sheepskin leather, dyed in natural tints (saffron, indigo, pomegranate rind – yes, really), and hand-stitched with a kind of meditative patience, babouches weren’t just shoes. They were social indicators. The yellow ones, for example, were once reserved for men of a certain status. Not royalty exactly, but somewhere between “local dignitary” and “guy who owns a lot of camels.”

Women, of course, had their own styles. Embroidered, sequinned, fringed. The kind of footwear you wore when you wanted to make a point without saying a word. The kind of babouches that could stop a conversation, or start a rumour. And as for weddings? Don’t even get started. A good bridal babouche could weigh more than a newborn goat and sparkle like a chandelier had exploded on your feet.

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Babouches are a bit of a Marmite item. Some people fall for them instantly. Others take one look at that floppy, backless design and ask, “How do you even walk in these?” The answer: carefully, and with a healthy respect for smooth marble floors. But for those in the know, babouches are the ultimate combination of comfort and flair. They whisper luxury, even when you’re just fetching the post. They make pyjamas feel like a caftan. They elevate the humble foot into an objet d’art.

In the medinas of Fes and Marrakech, babouche making is still an art form. Walk past the tanneries (preferably holding your breath), and you’ll see the old methods in action. Skins soaking in vats, the air thick with history and possibly ammonia. Artisans hunched over leather, cutting, shaping, stitching. Many of them have been doing this for decades, their fingers quicker than their mouths, their eyes trained to spot the perfect curve of a toe box. This isn’t fast fashion. This is slow, proud, handmade craftsmanship with a whiff of goat.

Somewhere along the way, the fashion world caught on. Babouches made the leap from alleyway to runway. Suddenly, Vogue had opinions on them. Designers began slapping their logos on the sides. You could spend the equivalent of a Moroccan month’s rent on a pair with “artisan distressing” and still find your neighbour’s grandmother scoffing at them. Because no one makes babouches quite like the people who invented them.

Tourists adore them. They scoop them up in armfuls, lured in by the colours, the price, and the dream of becoming effortlessly bohemian. Then they get home and realise their new slippers have no grip, no cushioning, and a toe so pointy it could be used in fencing. They wear them twice, then declare them too beautiful for daily use and leave them on a shelf like some kind of cultural paperweight.

But the locals know. Babouches aren’t meant to be babied. They’re for living in. They’re for errands and gossip and tea and prayer and watching football with your cousins. They’re the shoes you slip on without thinking, the ones that mould to your foot, the ones that say: this is home. There’s a quiet kind of poetry in that.

And let’s talk about the sound. Because babouches don’t walk, they scuff. They whisper along tiles. They shuffle over rugs. They make that soft slap-slap noise that tells you someone’s coming before they enter the room. It’s the sound of a courtyard afternoon, of someone bringing you a mint tea, of your aunt arriving to tell you something urgent and irrelevant.

There’s also the gender divide. Men’s babouches tend to be more subdued, but even then, there’s flair. A little embroidery, a hint of a curve. Women’s versions go all out: jewel tones, beads, patterns that could cause mild hallucinations. And then there are the kids’ ones, tiny and adorable, as if made for elf royalty.

You’ll find regional differences too. In Tiznit, they favour the soft leather kind that fold in half like a taco. In Essaouira, it’s the seaside versions with woven raffia soles. Up north? Striped fabric babouches that look like they moonlight as upholstery. Each pair tells a slightly different story. A different town, a different hand, a different kind of walk.

Of course, not all babouches are created equal. Some are mass-produced for tourist stalls, stitched hastily, dyed aggressively, and prone to falling apart mid-step. Others are so well-made they look better with age, like the Moroccan equivalent of a vintage leather jacket. You learn to spot the difference. Or at least you pretend to, while the vendor tells you this pair was stitched by his cousin, who is blind in one eye but blessed with mystical insight into leather.

Prices are as elastic as a snake oil salesman’s morals. Haggle, and haggle hard. Start low, stay friendly, act mildly uninterested. Walk away. Come back. Accept tea. Get distracted by another colour. Start over. Eventually, you’ll walk away with a pair you love, convinced you got the deal of the century. You probably didn’t. But you’ll look fabulous.

Back home, babouches take on new roles. They become house shoes for the stylishly lazy. Slippers for the dramatically inclined. Footwear for people who want to feel just a little bit smug while padding about their kitchen. They don’t belong to Morocco anymore. They’ve wandered far and wide, much like the people who first made them. But they never quite lose that sense of place. That scent of spice, that hint of dust, that whisper of goat.

And isn’t that the whole point? A pair of shoes that lets you walk through the world with a story under your feet. Something hand-made, slightly impractical, undeniably charming. Like all the best things in life. Like all the best parts of Morocco.

So the next time someone side-eyes your flamboyant footwear and asks what on earth you’re wearing, just smile. Say babouches. And walk away slowly, scuffing slightly, with all the elegance of someone who absolutely could have been a 17th-century spice merchant if the timing had been right.