Sliwaa's garments are made in the oldest city in Morocco. The medina of Fes has existed since the 9th century. With more than 8,000 narrow streets, there are a lot of sights to visit in the old medina. The skirts are named to the 2 beautiful places Maristan Sidi Frej and Qaat Smen in the medina. These are places you walk by when you go to the atelier where the women artisans make the clothes. Below you can read more about these two beautiful and special sights.
Qaat Smen Fondouk (the butter market) looks out onto the main road of Talaa Kbira and dates back to at least the 17th century. One can acces the Fondouk (Qaat Smen) through a long, straight entryway with a succession of pointed arcades. Two floors surround a rectangular patio paved with river stones. A relatively narrow gallery surrounds the patio and houses irregularly sized shops.The interior walls of the fondouk are simple and modest. One the ground floor, one can still buy butter, honey, olive oil, and Fassi-style dried meat or Khlia, which is cooked and preserved in animal fat. In the past, merchants would jealously save these products in traditional clay vases. Unfortunately, today, plastic barrels have replaced these traditional pottery vases. Larger pots used to hold honey and butter are sold at auction.Remarkably the fondouk has partially preserved both its original function and name. The second-floor houses workshops where leatherworkers and weaver can be seen at work.
The Maristan was a multi-medical specialties institution and a teaching hospital it was built around 1286 by the merinid king Youssef Ibn Yakoub, who gave it a big number of properties in mortain (habous), which permitted to this hospital to reach a high standard for the epoch. In the 14th century Hassan El Ouazzan worked in this Maristan. It is most probable that this Maristan was taken as a model to build the first psychiatric Hospital in the Western world (Valencia, Spain 1410) . The Maristan was open until 1944.
