The Tamazight Basket — Amazigh Embroidered Palm Tote

The pattern on this basket isn't decoration. It's a visual language.

The diamonds, chevrons and small open "eyes" stitched across the front belong to Amazigh design — the motifs Morocco's indigenous people have used for centuries in weaving, tattooing, pottery and jewellery. They're symbols before they're shapes: associated with protection, with fertility, with the eye that turns away harm. Which specific meanings attach to this particular arrangement depends on region and on family, and we'd rather not flatten that into a tidy paragraph.

A word on names. Amazigh, plural Imazighen, is what Morocco's indigenous people call themselves; Tamazight is their language. You'll see these baskets sold as "Berber" everywhere, including in our own title, because that's the word most people search for — but it's an outside name many Amazigh people reject, and it's not the one we use when we're not being read by a search engine.

How it's made. The basket is doum palm — the wild palm that grows across Morocco — cut, sun-dried until it pales to straw, split into ribbons and woven by hand in a tight herringbone. Then the pattern is embroidered directly into that weave in thick black cotton, laid so densely that the motifs read as solid blocks. Embroidering a straight edge onto basketry is difficult; the weave fights every line. Getting diamonds this crisp, at this scale, repeated across a whole basket, is the most skilled surface work in our range.

The handles are wrapped in matching cotton, and the rim is whipstitched in the same thread — so the black frames the basket rather than sitting in the middle of it.

Seven colorways. The palm stays natural on all of them and only the embroidery changes, which alters the whole character of the basket — the black reads graphic and almost monochrome-modern; the red and orange read traditional; the navy and green read quieter.

Medium size — beach and market: towels, a book, sunscreen, lunch, a bottle of water.

Woven and embroidered entirely by hand in Marrakech. The motifs fall slightly differently on every basket, because they're stitched freehand rather than from a printed guide.

Features & Specifications

• Material: Hand-woven doum palm leaf (natural, undyed) with cotton embroidery
• Detail: Hand-embroidered Amazigh geometric motifs; matching cotton-wrapped handles and whipstitched rim
• Colorways: Black, Orange, Navy, Green, Pink, Red, Lilac
• Size: Medium 
• Handmade: 100% handcrafted in Marrakech, Morocco. Ships direct from our workshop.
• One of a kind: Embroidered freehand, so motif placement, spacing and proportion vary between baskets.
• Care: Keep dry where you can; palm is water-resistant but not waterproof. If it gets wet, air dry naturally away from direct heat. Dust with a dry brush. Spot clean the embroidery gently with a barely damp cloth — do not soak, as dark cotton can run onto pale straw. Store loosely stuffed rather than flattened.

Expédié de notre entrepôt de Marrakech avec DHL ou FedEx. Livraison gratuite à partir de 100 $ (100 € en Europe). Cinq à huit jours ouvrables vers l'Europe, le Royaume-Uni, les États-Unis et le Canada ; sept à quatorze jours vers l'Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande. Trente jours pour changer d'avis.

Coupé et cousu à la main dans notre atelier de Marrakech. Chaque peau étant différente, aucune pièce n'est identique.