This Italian Fashion Designer Turned His Marrakech Home Into a Hotel—and It’s a Gorgeous Mix of Styles

Though he’s been out of the fashion industry for several decades, Romeo Gigli has reentered the conversation. The clothes that made him one of the biggest names in the 1980s—cocoon-shaped coats; tulip skirts—are finding new life on the luxury vintage market.

Meanwhile, the Milanese designer still experiments with color and form, but on a larger scale. Last year, he opened Riad Romeo, a five-room hotel in the Marrakech medina. Formerly his family vacation home, the property is a love letter to the city.

Gigli first visited Marrakech in 1967. “I was 17, and it was my first time out of Europe,” he says. “Morocco has been and will always be, for me, a gentle country, from its climate to the hospitality of its people.” 

At the time, he was studying architecture, but on return trips throughout the 1970s to Marrakech, as well to places like China and India, he discovered new passions, for art, jewelry, and the traditional clothing he encountered. “All of the images I recorded in my memory formed a creative melting pot,” he says. He launched his first collection in 1984 and debuted at Paris Fashion Week in 1989.

By the end of the 90s, he had retreated from the fashion world, but never forgot his love of Marrakech and continued to visit. “All my life, I was thinking, ‘Maybe when I’m an old man, Marrakech would be nice place to spend the rest of my life,’ ” he says.

He and his wife, Lara Aragno—who worked for Giorgio Armani and Prada for several decades and is also a ceramist and jeweler—purchased the property that would become Riad Romeo 21 years ago. They visited the city frequently; during the pandemic, the couple, along with their daughter, Diletta Gigli (who now manages the hotel), moved there from Milan and began a three-year renovation.

Gigli tapped Italian architect Giacomo Allievi for the structural upgrade. Inside, every detail—from the intricately sculpted plaster doorways to the hand-carved headboards and the inlaid tables in the dining area—was selected by Gigli and crafted by artisans, many of them Moroccan. The three guest rooms and two suites feature traditional Moroccan designs, such as zellige-tiled showers and handwoven cotton bedspreads made in Rabat.

Gigli also worked with Italian artist and designer Jacopo Foggini, who created the octopus-shaped yellow chandeliers in the courtyard and the chairs and tables on the terrace. The pair also collaborated on an orange-and-gold dewdrop installation over the stairway and the glimmering waterfall sculpture in the three-story courtyard.

Guests hoping to take a piece of Gigli’s world home can browse the hotel’s boutique, which has a selection of his designs, including djellabas (common North African robes) and brocade jackets. It also carries leatherwork and ceramics by Aragno. Additionally, any custom piece in the riad can be made to order; it will come numbered and signed by Gigli.

Though the family is often around to offer advice, they also have a concierge team to arrange experiences in and around the city, including sidecar tours and visits to Gigli’s favorite shops in the medina. “The hope is that our guests can discover the real Morocco,” says Gigli, who likes to escape to lesser-known corners of the country, like Tetouan, a Mediterranean port town known for its craft traditions, and Asilah, on the Atlantic coast.

Though he’s no longer designing for the world stage, Gigli still sees his work at the riad as an extension of what he began decades ago. “Just as I did in fashion, I’m making a present for other people,” he says. “It’s my attitude: to make happiness.”

A version of this story first appeared in the November 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Out of Whole Cloth.”