From Food to Fashion, Tunis Is Having a Cultural Renaissance

posted on: Feb 7, 2020

SOURCE: CN TRAVELER

BY: SARAH KHAN

An unmarked black door on the fringes of Tunis’s medina marks the entrance to photographer Sabri Ben Mlouka’s lair. If you’ve been lucky enough to score an invite to one of his private evening gatherings, you’ll follow flickering candles through a restored arabesque archway into a cavernous loft furnished with tables, an unmade bed, and oversize photographs. Is this a gallery? A supper club? An eccentric’s private atelier?

The answer is all of the above. Ben Mlouka rescued the abandoned building, turning it into an exhibition space for his work—black-and-white portraits of women—and a setting for the events he hosts with chef and TV personality Malek Labidi. Here, small, eclectic groups of guests experience Ben Mlouka’s photography and Labidi’s inventive dishes, like dates stuffed with foie gras and mint.

“For us it’s a laboratory,” says Ben Mlouka. “I try things in photography, she tries things in gastronomy.”

An unmarked black door on the fringes of Tunis’s medina marks the entrance to photographer Sabri Ben Mlouka’s lair. If you’ve been lucky enough to score an invite to one of his private evening gatherings, you’ll follow flickering candles through a restored arabesque archway into a cavernous loft furnished with tables, an unmade bed, and oversize photographs. Is this a gallery? A supper club? An eccentric’s private atelier?

The answer is all of the above. Ben Mlouka rescued the abandoned building, turning it into an exhibition space for his work—black-and-white portraits of women—and a setting for the events he hosts with chef and TV personality Malek Labidi. Here, small, eclectic groups of guests experience Ben Mlouka’s photography and Labidi’s inventive dishes, like dates stuffed with foie gras and mint.

“For us it’s a laboratory,” says Ben Mlouka. “I try things in photography, she tries things in gastronomy.”

That such experiments could exist in the heart of Tunis was unfathomable a decade ago, under dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. But the Tunisian Revolution, which began in late 2010 and kicked off the broader Arab Spring, changed everything. While reforms were halting—and the 2015 Sousse resort attack temporarily dampened Tunisia’s ability to attract visitors—the country is stable, and today’s Tunis is a city where I, as a woman on my own, felt fine taking taxis late at night. And with democracy has come creativity.

“When you are in a dictator system, your mind is sleeping,” says Labidi, who returned from Europe the month the revolution began. “You don’t allow yourself to see all your abilities because you know you cannot realize your dreams. When they said, ‘Now, people, you are completely free’—the creativity of everyone completely exploded.”

Soon other Tunisians began returning home. “I wouldn’t have come without the revolution,” says Sofiane Ben Chaabane, who had been living in France. In the upmarket seaside suburb of La Marsa, he and his French wife, Claire, have recast a 100-year-old tiled villa as the office of their fashion brand, Lyoum. “We felt that maybe there is a new era, a new chapter,” he says. “We wanted to start a brand that’s a vision of the new Tunisia.” In local Arabic dialect, lyoum means “today,” and at the couple’s nearby boutique, this contemporary vision is easy to find. Billowing knee-length culottes and floral dresses hang next to shirts that proclaim “Lennon loved couscous” and “Gainsbourg loved harissa.”

The country has long been a production hub for global brands, like Levi’s. But now, says Sofiane, “there’s a new vision of made in Tunisia.” The fresh creative energy has a centuries-old foundation—in the medina alone, there are hundreds of artisanal workshops—and young designers are blending traditional workmanship with global sensibilities.

For her label Anissa Aida, designer Anissa Meddeb, who lives in the capital, makes gossamer silk blouses evoking the striped motif of handwoven fouta towels and voluminous coats inspired by the burnoose cloaks worn by Berbers. Design studio Flayou, founded by Tunisian repat Hella El Khiari and her French husband, Thomas Egoumenides, applies techniques of Sejnane wood-fired pottery to chess- and backgammon boards. Baraa Ben Boubaker shuttles between Nice and Tunis to work on her breezy resortwear with experts in the dyeing crafts, like ogla embroidery from Gabes and hayek weaving from Kairouan.

For a quick tour of Tunisia’s creative renaissance, hit Supersouk, a gleaming two-story design emporium that houses 120 homegrown labels, most launched within the past few years. “When I was young, under Ben Ali, it was not the same Tunisia. When I left I said, ‘I’ll never come back, bye-bye!’ ” recalls its cofounder Isaure Bouyssonie, who is from a French family that has lived here for six generations. But she returned with her Swiss husband, Marlo Kara, in 2015 to create Supersouk and the furniture-and-housewares label Marlo & Isaure. They embody the hope that endures in Tunisia, even as the promise of the Arab Spring has faded for the country’s neighbors. “We just try to live every day,” says Labidi, “and make our dreams come true.”

Getting busy in the capital

Art and shopping

Selma Feriani Gallery
Look for young local artists like Lina Ben Rejeb and Malek Gnaoui in this former 1960s convent, now home to Tunisia’s leading gallery—set to open a location in London‘s Mayfair this summer.

Lyoum
Pick up a spin on the denim dengri, the ubiquitous traditional workman’s coat, at this homegrown boutique’s outposts in the suburbs of La Marsa and El Menzah 1, which celebrate a pan-Mediterranean lifestyle with floaty fabrics.

Supersouk
Highlights at Tunisia’s top multibrand designer shop include Samaka, a menswear line by DJ-designer Aziz Kalel; minimalist wooden lamps from JK Lighting; and ceramics by the house label, Marlo & Isaure.

Flayou
A hard-to-categorize design studio from owners Hella El Khiari and Thomas Egoumenides—the duo offers everything from hammocks made with kitschy fabrics sourced from the medina to miniature replicas of Tunis landmarks in resin and wood.

Anissa Aida
The boutique opening in the Mutuelleville neighborhood this spring by local fashion designer Anissa Meddeb will house her minimalist collections, which combine authentic workmanship with Japanese wabi-sabi aesthetics.

B7L9
The London- and Tunis-based Kamel Lazaar Foundation opened this new cultural venue in an underserved neighborhood of the city last year, bringing experimental contemporary art installations from across North Africa and the Middle East.

Stay

Maison Dedine
If this glamorous new five-room luxury guesthouse in Sidi Bou Said were any closer to the water, you’d be swimming. Works by contemporary Tunisian artists adorn every room.

Dar Ben Gacem Kahia
After the success of Dar Ben Gacem, the first of several traditional houses in the medina to be reborn as a hotel, owner Leila Ben Gacem opened a sister property nearby in a 17th-century house with a gleaming marble courtyard.

Eat and drink

Dar El Jeld
Live qanun music and wall-to-wall tiles set the scene for an elegant dinner in the heart of the medina.

Clun GingembreOne of the most popular nightclubs in Tunis, located in the trendy seaside district of Gammarth.

Au Bon Vieux Temps
Rub shoulders with artists and designers over pasta and regional wine at this lively bistro in La Marsa.