Artsi Ifrach is a critically acclaimed, self-taught Moroccan fashion designer, photographer, and artist. He is the founder and creative director of the Marrakech-based culture house Maison ARTC. His work brings together antique textiles, cultural memory and personal transformation. In this feature, he reflects on creativity, faith, identity and the principles that guide his life and work.
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Emotion, Dark & Light, Politics, and Ifrach’s God
In what the designer describes as an “emotional process,” Artsi Ifrach searches for a mysterious element that has been undervalued and talks to the fabric. He repairs his memories and his past by creating a future for the garment he is handling: “You don’t look good right now, but don’t worry, we’re going to recover you.”
He is resolutely honest about his process. He doesn’t force the fabric into what it is not. He looks at the memory it holds and the energy that can be drawn from it. This practice involves questioning the reasons behind what he is doing: “It’s a real antique that’s made a long time ago. It has a history, and the energy of someone. I think the garment itself talks to me regardless of my own memories.” In that, Ifrach relinquishes the need to have all the answers from the outset. “Creating is not supposed to be comfortable. This is how you challenge your emotion, this is how you fix things.”
Ifrach does not make fashion, because that would place him under an obligation to create garments that are sellable, which goes against his creative principle: human beings are not products, and culture is the source of the DNA that everybody owns. Fashion paired with industry loses its value: “I don’t think about it as something that I will sell.”
Among tributes to Nepal and Palestine is a black-and-white photograph of a model wearing an oversized white robe with the black inscription In God We Trust. When asked about the most emotional piece he has worked on, Ifrach evokes how he used to create pieces inspired by the American flag, until something shattered and broke there. “Sometimes you love something, and then something happens and you don’t love it anymore… You get the truth about it.” He embraces a form of political engagement against injustice, in favour of humanity. He cannot touch the flag anymore because of what is happening in the world, and because, as he sees it, we are in the midst of an awakening.
He remains positive as he keeps his distance from darkness. “I will never do dark things. I’m a very hopeful person. I believe in humanity regardless of everything.” He speaks about the Strait of Hormuz and finding beauty beyond the negativity. While the world focuses on the turmoil there, an immense culture lies beyond it. People forget what happened in Iraq, what is happening in Lebanon, how it has destroyed people’s lives and societies, and how it destroyed culture intended for future generations.
It is non-negotiable and unquestionable that Ifrach’s existence and creation stem from God and only because of Him. He explains that In God We Trust is a political statement: since the phrase appears on US currency, the actual god of the currency is money. To Ifrach, God stands in opposition to this worship of money. God is an energy; God is immaterial; God is nature; God is beauty; God is art; God is culture; God is humanity; God is good. “I will not move without my God nowhere.”
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The Process
What happens when Artsi Ifrach creates a garment, when he touches the textile? Does he begin with the fabric or by imagining a body, a memory, a colour, an image? When does he look at his creation and say, It is done?
The process begins with Ifrach travelling, gathering objects wherever he goes and bringing them home. “I collect, collect, collect, collect.” The biggest challenge is sourcing those valuable fabrics. In Morocco, he works with two women through a process Ifrach describes as cooking. “I always tell them, don’t ever come with your mind, come with your heart, because this is what we do. We come and we practice love.”
For the embroideries, Ifrach gives Fatiha the freedom to create them from his sketches. She does what she wants and feels, which brings her immense happiness. For the fabric, Samira understands Ifrach’s work very well. They have worked together for eight years. Samira previously worked for an older artisan who specialised in handmade clothing. She fixes destroyed fabric in such a way that the traces of destruction remain visible. Ifrach takes the fabric, unfolds it and begins pinning it on the mannequin. This allows him to see the result alongside the process and adjust as it develops.
To Ifrach, a garment embodies a dialogue between cultures. “I can have a kimono in front of me with the beautiful jellabaand an old Ottoman piece. I start to create a conversation between them and see how they will become a piece.” The garment becomes a metaphorical extension of the self. Whether it belongs to fabric, memory, history or the individual under society’s gaze, damage is approached through the same principle: it is incorporated into a larger narrative of meaning. Ifrach leaves the creation untouched for two days, trusting the process before intervening again. Then, he returns, altering only what does not satisfy him.
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Transformation, Not Playing the Game & the Future
A younger Ifrach was more concerned with how he looked and appeared in public. The focus was on him as the designer. Today, he is a private person. He puts the value of his pieces first and allows people to encounter the work without the mediation of his image. “That’s why I love Maison ARTC and let it become what it is, because I emphasise the work and the creativity.”
There is a price for this honesty. “Being alone. People respect it, but they don’t accept it, and I pay a price for it, so I’m okay with that.” Ifrach reflects on the controversy surrounding John Galliano: Horizons: “We lost someone that is valuable. We lost something.” Ifrach distinguishes between accountability and his assessment of Galliano’s creative legacy, arguing that “no one is better, more creative, or more influential than Galliano.”
To be honest in a world riddled with dishonesty is what keeps loneliness at bay for Ifrach. He is surrounded by beauty; the people who create alongside him are honest and beautiful, too. “Beauty is honesty and nothing else. It’s so nice for me to live like this. I can be myself.”
Many people with artistic instincts are afraid to develop them, later lamenting that they did not succeed because they did not know how to play the game. I asked Ifrach what the game he refuses to play is, and what he would say to those who share that fear. His philosophy in two sentences: “In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.” And “If you want to be somebody else, somebody else is already you.”
Ifrach resists performance culture and is sceptical of status signalling. He searches for permanence in a culture increasingly organised around visibility. A world in which people dress well without being good people is, to Ifrach, nonsensical. His work is a defiance to disposability, whether of garments, cultures, identities or people. “A lot of people today, a lot of young people, a lot of fashion people are not wearing their style, they’re wearing their wallets.” The brand they wear are an indicator that they are in this place. When they do not play the game, they do not benefit the people who make money from it.
Ifrach does not celebrate his creativity through other people’s success. Any celebrity wearing his clothes has bought them. Nothing is free. “I don’t dress celebrities. If it’s valuable, you will buy it and you will celebrate it without me being a part of it.”
Although he didn’t graduate from a fashion school, Ifrach has taught at renowned institutions. Maison ARTC, in its second phase, is headed towards education and passing this knowledge to others. Ifrach sees himself continuing his practice to make it grow and make it more visible. The first thing he intends to teach creative people is self-confidence. “It doesn’t last for a long time, and I want to last for a long time.”
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On Ballet & Being a Good Person
Ifrach was a classical ballet dancer prior to becoming a designer. He did it for 20 years, travelling all over the world, getting scholarships. “I was a really good ballet dancer. I was very successful.” Age compelled him to choose between becoming a choreographer and moving in a different direction. His passion for the garment as an artistic medium and for beauty led him to fashion. Ballet influenced his discipline and gave him the movement and volume that characterise his clothes, in addition to light and hope.
“I have been living by myself since I’m 13 years old. Everything that I did, I did it because it was my choice. Nobody chose anything for me. I made myself all the way up. I never got anything for free.” Ifrach does not his circumstances as fixed or inherently negative. He believes there is a good reason behind them: “I will prevail regardless of what it is, because I choose to believe that good is always happening, especially if you are a good person.”
We live in a judgemental society, where everybody wants to be good by piggybacking on someone else, and where a lot of people are hiding behind God even though they are not religious. “You are not a presenter of God. You are not his ambassador.” For Ifrach, goodness speaks through actions. If there is negative energy, he feels it and doesn’t take part in it. “You cannot ask yourself to have a good life without being a good person. You will never have a good life. I’m happy with the life I’ve been given. I don’t want to be somebody else.”
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On Tattoos & Other Beautiful Things
Ifrach’s body is adorned with inked works of art. Each carries symbolic weight, concealing an older story beneath it. He has Hold On on his wrists and Let Go on his lower legs. The words express the tension between holding on and letting go, so that what follows may arrive in a positive way. Behind his ears, another duet: Good On, Bad Off.
“God made me who I am for a good reason, and I need to do everything I can because it’s supposed to serve me in many ways.” Whether gay, Jewish, Arab, Ifrach is convinced there is a good reason for it, including the family into which he was born. “Everything has a meaning and I don’t question those things.” He just sees where the good is and the reason behind it, and the idea of boxes and labels holds little interest to him.
Ifrach inhabits duets of opposing forces: surrender and conviction; humility and certainty; openness and strong principles; transformation and permanence. My conversation with him was not about Ifrach the designer, but about the individual who remains radically open to metamorphosis without surrendering his moral centre.
“I live my life as I am because I’m supposed to be myself. I can win awards and do very big things—which I’m doing. I can meet people or achieve beautiful things. At the end of the day, I have to wake up every day and start all over again. I stay humble and grateful regardless, and this is what I want to be. I already became.”
—R.
All quotations from the designer appear verbatim.