00:06When I got here it was a feeling of belonging somewhere. Immediately I felt it. That's strange.
00:21Perched on the northernmost tip of the African coast, Tangier has always looked in two directions at once.
00:28This is a gritty port city in balance, fixed between Europe and Africa, the sacred and profane.
00:36It is a melange of every style and every sort of person here.
00:42There's a sort of outspoken elegance, it's a kind of fashion hedonism.
00:46It's quite strong stuff and you either take to it or you don't.
00:50In a place where rock stars and poets have long set out to find themselves, I'm here in search of
00:56today's creative expats.
00:58To understand the legendary hypnotic power of this city and the influence it had on their personal style.
01:05My first stop is a place where the past and present converge.
01:10This is the most beautiful embroidery of Morocco.
01:13Wow.
01:13Perfect from both sides.
01:15Mejid is Tangier's most famous antique dealer, a passionate curator of traditional Moroccan artifacts, from rugs to caftans and jewelry.
01:24A dress.
01:26He left behind his hometown of Fez nearly 40 years ago and found himself emptying ashtrays at the lavish parties
01:33of wealthy expats.
01:34He saw their fabulous collections and found an obsession.
01:38I didn't choose Tangier, but Tangier chose me. It's gifted me so much beautiful taste. It's smell, it's the atmosphere,
01:47it's something about it.
01:50I meet people from all over the world. It's a bouquet.
01:53A friend to the many stars who call Tangier their spiritual home, Mejid's favourite customer is none other than Mick
02:00Jagger.
02:00When I was young, at the hippie time, I was the clothes, the colours, like your family, to Bob Dylan,
02:07to Kurt Stevens, to Running Stones.
02:10At that time, they had big names. But for us, it was like you and me.
02:16What do you think Tangier gave them?
02:18I don't know.
02:19You know, Mathis, I can understand the light. If so or not, I can understand he got influenced by the
02:24kaftan and the cave.
02:26But some people, they come for a dream, but there is no dream.
02:30Tangier became a destination for dreamers and misfits after 1923, when it was recognised as an international zone.
02:38A loosely governed centre for espionage, drugs and an anything goes attitude.
02:44The British had the post office and the French had the roads. Basically, there were very, very few laws.
02:49And it was a fantastically clever experiment.
02:53Photographer Tessa Codrington spent much of her life at her third generation family home in the hills of Tangier.
03:00I came here because I was a child and my grandfather lived here.
03:03And I did fall in love with it, but only as a child I fell in love with my grandfather's
03:07donkey.
03:09It was the best thing that attracted me.
03:11She remembers much of the excitement of a time when the promise of cosmopolitan freedom attracted the likes of writers
03:18Paul Bowles and William Burroughs, as well as fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent.
03:22The expatriates who came here then were just coming for sex and drugs mostly.
03:28The older ones came because it was the freedom, being able to live how you want to live and not
03:34being constrained by stupid laws back home.
03:37And now that we're all part of Morocco, it sort of goes on really, that freedom, that sense of liberation.
03:44Weaving through the labyrinths of the old city, I have to wonder, is the creativity that once flourished here now
03:51just nostalgia and romance?
03:54Is the vibrant life of the past still alive today?
03:59Niccolò Baldazzara is a successful Italian interior designer who built his home here on a whim.
04:05I've always been known to be quite colourful to the extent of being nicknamed like the parrots.
04:12I adore colours, so I love to mix them.
04:14But definitely coming here has enhanced my passion for it.
04:18How important is fashion and how you're perceived?
04:22Would you be happy just wearing jeans and a t-shirt or does this speak to who Niccolò really is?
04:27Not really against jeans and t-shirts, it's just I wouldn't feel comfortable.
04:32Moroccans have a great saying.
04:34They say that we, Westerners, have watches, they have time.
04:42It's nice to take 15 minutes to dress up.
04:47The time here, it's like time has sort of stood still a little bit and there's still this wonderful way
04:52of life here.
04:52But, you know, quite frankly, it's delicious.
04:57Paul Bowles once said that Tangier holds added depth of reality with its past and present existing simultaneously.
05:05Poodle is a menswear designer who seems to bring that statement to life by combining once forgotten fabrics with modern
05:12European cuts and sensibilities.
05:15Everything is sourced here from little shops in the Medina.
05:19So you just wander around and you find these rolls that are just collecting dust.
05:24And they're all imported from 50s, 60s, 70s to Tangier and that's what I'm tapping into.
05:32Anything that you want to make, it's feasible.
05:35You know, you can go to a lovely leather man down the road and he can put up a sample
05:39for a belt.
05:40You can go to a shoe man and say I've got this idea.
05:44All the possibilities are endless on a creative front.
05:48And you still have that old fashioned elegance that's very contagious, very inspiring.
06:00I feel comfortable in the classic old fashioned style.
06:07Old fashioned in every sort of colour as long as it's beige.
06:11That's called the poet's hat. It's from a very old shop in London. An old battered planters.
06:17Jonathan Dawson is a British journalist who came here 20 years ago to write a story.
06:23But instead of passing through, he decided to stay.
06:26Now he lives here full time with his rooster and dog and has his suits handmade by a tailor just
06:32up the street.
06:33You didn't want to adopt some of the Moroccan prints and colour?
06:36No, no. I didn't go native in terms of getting out into Moroccan clothes, which I admire but don't suit
06:42me.
06:43You find a style that fits you and you stick to it.
06:46What is it about Tangier that you think has been so attractive?
06:50It's famous for people coming and reinventing themselves.
06:53They start out in a basement in London and end up first floor in Tangier.
06:58Then towards the end of their lives they invent titles for themselves and they get buried as HRH so and
07:03so.
07:03So I can leave here Lady Leo?
07:05Oh, easily. And it would be totally accepted here and everyone would give a lunch party for you.
07:13I'm starting to realise that in many ways Tangier is still a place of possibility.
07:18To live a life apart and create your own world within the existing one.
07:24Do you think there was just a more romantic period in the 60s and 70s?
07:28No, but maybe still people find dreams now.
07:31I think so. I think still now some people live this fantasy, this stealth.
07:36I enjoy the freedom to go out in the street and be who I am, as it were, without having
07:43to pretend to be something else.
07:46The brilliant minds and creatives that came before cut a passage for the uprooted of today.
07:53Tangier expat style is more than a type of fabric or a colour palette.
07:57In some ways less tangible and yet entirely immersive.
08:01I think it's the colour, the light, it just gets all your creative juices going.
08:06It's a way of life. It's how you represent your ideal you, given the freedom from rules, responsibility or time.
08:15Now there'll be combat, you see.
08:17Oh no!
08:18This goes on all day.
08:20Stop it!
08:21Sorry about this. Come here.
08:22Oh!
08:25Look at him. He's going for more crumbs.
08:28Anyway, I've only got one head but 20 hats and that's the end of the show.
