She is born in Casablanca and raised in an Australian surf life dream. Fashion designer and Moroccan it-girl Sofia El Arabi inspires many people all around the world with her amazing collection Bakchic and it’s breathtaking Instagram account.

Seeking for her own self, Sofia found Bakchic along the way. “We are all born in a predetermined globalized culture where the individuality has been drowned in a very complex crossed-cultural recipe. I just wanted the real ingredients that were composing mine: Sofia, Moroccan, carrying a name that means wisdom in a spirit oscillating between the one of an old 85-year-old woman and a 5-year-old child inside a 31-year-old body. Which leads us to an average age of 40.”

How would you describe the Moroccan sense of fashion, and your own?
Sofia: “The streets of Morocco are the real essence of this mix of inspiration. People live in these streets. They shout, they talk loudly, women from the two Towers’ desks meet others from the old medina, frequenting the same markets, all mixed up. It is a pure painting.

That’s basically what it is. Raw and true, just like the designs and styles I cherish, traditional raw fabrics and sharp cuts, the perfect combo for a minimalism partisane.”

Whats it like being a woman and entrepreneur in Morocco, is the community supportive?
Sofia: “It’s pretty exhausting, sometimes. Because, in Morocco, mixing traditions with contemporary fashion is all new, so everything is still to build. Traditional sewers are not used to apply their know-hows on such different pieces of designs.”

It’s commonly known women in Morocco should take particular care that their legs and arms are covered. What do you do?
Sofia: “I have been living in Morocco my whole life and I never felt like Moroccan women ‘should’ cover. We all respect some kind of common sense of decency, but some are veiled, others are not, and the different feminine styles that you could see in Morocco are a real mosaic.”

What places do you find the most inspiring in Casablanca?
Sofia: “Sea spiritual sight from the Hassan II Mosque, the Humphrey Bogart sight from the famous Ricks Café inspired by the movie Casablanca, the Flash Back sight in the Old Medina, and its endless tiny little tortuous streets… For the other sights, I would simply recommend to meet people’s looks in the streets of Casablanca.”

What is your eventual goal with bakchic?
Sofia: “Being part of very precise and particularly inspiring stores or e-shops such as Net-à-Porter.”

What are your favourite hotspots in Casablanca?
Sofia: “Bacco e Venere for dinner, the Cabestan Restaurant for sea view lovers and the Sky Lounge for cloud view seekers.”

What book do you read at the moment?
Sofia: “O Mes Nuits, O Mes Yeux from LAMIA ZIADE I bought in Beyrout. A super interesting book about each piece of the Arabs Glourious Artists’s Life From Oum Kaltoum to Fairouz and the most inspiring illustrations ever!”

What music do you play when working?
Sofia: “Dire Straits, when I don’t play the ‘I hit my head with my pen because I can’t think of a new idea for my designs’ super cool tone.”

What is a little thing that pisses you off at the moment?
Sofia: “My eyebrows that are not perfectly similar to What I want.”

What do you consider your biggest achievement so far?
Sofia: “Launching a collection that was actually mine. I wondered if my work could be perceived as too communautarist, because it’s very Eastern inspired. But it’s not. Ninety percent of my customers are international. I just used a national canal to express a universal and humanist message.”

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
Sofia: “You become what you believe in.”

What is the best advice you could give other (career) women?
Sofia: “There are many rational matters that could slow down you launching your project, but trust me if you truly believe and feel you should give birth to it then this is the only sense you have to follow.”

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