Get the Look: COLOUR AT EL FENN
Colour is a signature of our style. And we’ve been saturating El Fenn with it for 20 years now. But what are the colours we go back to again – and again?
Colour drenching is a thing in the interiors world right now but we’ve been doing it since we opened in 2004. Why? Because we’ve got beautiful Marrakech light – one of the world’s most precious interior’s resources – and it makes any colour sing.
Right from the start, we decided to use that beautiful light to go bold. And to make sure people felt immersed in our world from the moment they stepped through our front door, we painted our main entrance corridor in El Fenn’s signature red. Over the years, we’ve mixed it up a little of course by adding a splash of yellow on a door frame, or painted a receding wall contrasting hot pink. But the red entrance corridor will always remain. Even if our bedrooms are in constant colour motion.
Because for us, colour is all about being playful and we use it to create different moods and experiences. Rooms in traditional riad buildings are usually rectangular and often on the dark side for instance. So in private bedrooms where light is more limited, we lean into this and drench spaces in darker colours like teal, black and dark blue. In larger, lighter rooms, we’ve used everything from pink and red to ochre and burnt orange. No two bedrooms are the same here at El Fenn.
We also knew from the start that amidst all this colour, it was important to make sure our public spaces cohered together so our internal courtyard walls are washed in more traditional muted natural plaster. It means there’s an interplay of moods and light as you move through our buildings and in more neutral spaces, colour is reintroduced through tiles, textiles and pattern interplay.
We’re often asked how to recreate this feeling at home and we know our colour-soaked approach can be daunting. We’ve got the advantage of huge spaces to play with after all. Our walls can take some bold. But even in smaller buildings, it’s possible to use colour bravely to create mood and feeling. Focus on that. How do you want to feel when you’re in a space? Cocooned or invigorated? Relaxed or energised? It’s also important to identify a core palette and the one we return to again and again is red, ochre and pink. These colours are constantly reiterated throughout El Fenn as a way to bring the design together.
Our art collection, which hangs throughout the hotel, was also a consideration. We were sure we didn’t want a white-wall gallery feel. El Fenn is a home from home where colour and art are layered together to create cocooning spaces. But we’ve found that bold colours don’t distract from the art. They make it sing.
Most of our walls are made of tadelakt – traditional lime plaster which is pigmented by hand – and it means we can’t give you paint codes because every shade is unique to El Fenn. Our artisans add pigment when they’re mixing the tadelakt and we stand with them, add a little more of this, experiment and add something extra if we want the colour to zing just a bit more. But if you’re looking to recreate some El Fenn at home then we love Treron, a soft olive green by Farrow and Ball, Little Greene’s Baked Cherry and Sand III, a great neutral by Paint & Paper Library.
