Bustle Exclusive
How creator Aurora James found inspiration in Moroccos traditional babouche.
I found an apartment in Bed-Stuy on Craigslist and moved in, sight unseen.
I also started dating a photographer I had met on a Woolly Pocket shoot named Jason.
He was from Kansas and six feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes.
Jason was talented, hardworking, and deeply immersed in fashion, and his ambition matched my own.
It meant long hours in a big city, but I loved every moment of it.
Meanwhile, I was still thinking of what I wanted to do.
I was also experiencing an intense pull toward Africa.
My mom had somehow acquired a time-share in Marrakesh.
She still loved traveling when she could, and passed that wanderlust on to me.
Jason and I saved two thousand dollars and went for two weeks.
It was my first trip to a continent that felt so big to me, emotionally and physically.
I had been thinking more and more about my father, and my own Ghanaian roots.
It was different from anywhere I had been before.
It was also here where I fell in love with the babouche.
When form and function marry, something as simple and beautiful as the babouche is born.
I started looking for the shoes everywhere, in the markets and shops, on people.
Often, I could see the back heel was steamed down, giving it a mule-like effect.
Some, however, were sewn or glued down.
I began buying pairs, not even checking to see if they would fit me.
I simply wanted to appreciate them.
Proof of life and a rite of passage.
Western influence was always seeping through.
I asked one of my favorite vendors for his contact info to keep in touch.
I added additional padding to the insole and even toyed with adding a heavier outsole too.
So I reached out to the Marrakesh vendor and requested he make me a special pair out of denim.
Each one got a little closer to what I envisioned.
I finally asked him to place the denim seam down the center of the shoe.
From the book WILDFLOWER: A Memoir by Aurora James.
Copyright 2023 by Aurora James and Bruised Fruit LLC.
Published by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
This article was originally published onMay 9, 2023
