Fifteen to twenty five riders line up, always an odd number, with the troupe leader at the exact centre. They set off at a gallop. At a moment no one outside the line can see coming, every rifle fires at once. The powder is blank. The sound is not. This is Tbourida, and Morocco has been doing it since the sixteenth century. The smoke in the photograph above is real.
In 2021 UNESCO inscribed Tbourida on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Outside Morocco most people know it by its other name: Fantasia.
We did not photograph this collection in a studio and add the reference afterwards. We took it to the ground where the thing actually happens.
What Tbourida actually is
The performance has two movements. First the hadda, where the riders come in at a trot and perform arm manoeuvres before returning to the start. Then the talqa, when the troupe sets off again at a gallop and fires a single round of blanks together, a simulation of a collective departure for war.
The whole thing lasts seconds. Everything else, the months of preparation, the training of the horses, the making of the clothes, exists to produce those seconds.
It is not a show staged for visitors. UNESCO notes that it passes down inside families, generation to generation, by oral tradition. The people performing it learned it from the people who raised them.
Behind the jacket in this frame are the khayma, the tents that go up around the field for the duration of a moussem. They are where the troupes prepare, eat and wait.
The geometry on the garment and the geometry on the tents are not the same object, but they come from the same visual habit: a motif repeated until it becomes a surface.
The clothes are half the tradition
This is the part usually left out, and the part that concerns us most.
A Tbourida rider does not simply turn up. UNESCO's own description lists period costume and accessories: a turban, draped clothing, oriental slippers, a copy of the Koran and a traditional sword. The horses carry material sewn and decorated by hand in the traditional manner.
Every one of those pieces is made by someone. Embroiderers, leatherworkers, weavers, saddlers. An equestrian tradition that survived five centuries carried an entire craft economy with it, and that craft is the thing a Moroccan house can honestly claim a relationship with.
Inside the khayma, between the moukhala rifles laid out on the carpet, the two people who make GLORY RM are doing what they do every other day of the year: working thread by hand.
A crochet jacket from this house can take up to 185 hours. Nobody in this photograph is performing. They were put in a tent full of rifles and they carried on working.
The rack behind holds the moukhala, the long rifles fired during the talqa.
From the field to the street
Out of the field and into a studio, the same pieces read as clothes rather than costume. That is the test we care about.
The Green Fantasya Jacket keeps the star motif across the body, with black collar and cuffs holding it in. Worn closed over plain black, it carries the reference without announcing it.
The same construction exists in red. The Red Fantasya is built from premium white denim with panels of red Fantasya fabric decorated with stars, and the Red Fantasya Pants take that fabric into a relaxed wide leg with a white contrast panel.
One word matters throughout. These pieces are inspired by the costumes of Tbourida. They are not made from ceremonial cloth and they are not reproductions of riding dress. Saying otherwise would be easy and dishonest.
Green Fantasya Jacket. 250 EUR. Green and gold star motif, black collar and cuffs.
Red Fantasya. 205 EUR. Premium white denim with red star-panelled fabric.
Red Fantasya Pants. 145 EUR. Relaxed wide leg, contrast panel, unisex.
Made in Morocco. Free shipping worldwide. Ships from Marrakech in 8 to 12 days. Exchanges within 10 days.
Heritage is not a print
There is a version of this that goes badly. A house lifts a motif from a living tradition, prints it on a garment, writes the word authentic on the label and sells it to people who will never know the difference.
We would rather be precise. GLORY RM is a Moroccan house. Our crochet jackets are made by hand in Marrakech, by a mother and her son. When we say handmade, we mean it. When a garment is inspired by something rather than made from it, we say that too. We wrote about how the crochet pieces are made in Moroccan crochet and modern fashion.
Tbourida does not need fashion to survive. It has families, and it has UNESCO. What a Moroccan label can do is point at it, accurately, in front of an audience that would otherwise never look.
Frequently asked
What is Tbourida?
A Moroccan equestrian performance dating back to the sixteenth century, in which a line of riders charges together and fires blanks in unison. It is known internationally as Fantasia, and was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021.
Is Fantasia the same thing as Tbourida?
Yes. Tbourida is the Moroccan name. Fantasia is the name that travelled, which is why the two are used interchangeably abroad.
How many riders take part?
Between fifteen and twenty five, always an odd number, so the troupe leader can sit at the exact centre of the line.
What is a khayma?
The traditional Moroccan tent. During a moussem, khayma go up around the field and become the place where troupes prepare and rest between charges.
Are the Fantasya pieces traditional Moroccan clothing?
No, and we would not want them read that way. They are contemporary garments whose pattern and colour are inspired by the textiles and costumes of Tbourida. Traditional ceremonial dress is its own thing and belongs to the people who make and wear it.
Can the pieces be worn separately?
Yes. Each is cut to work alone. A Fantasya jacket over a plain heavyweight T-shirt is the easiest way in.
Designed for today
Fashion changes every season. A tradition that survived five hundred years and two dozen rifles going off at once does not.
These pieces are our way of standing next to that, without pretending to be it.