Follow the trend for Moroccan style and enjoy an exotic visual feast in your home

Gabrielle Fagan sources the vital ingredients. IF you’re brave enough to throw away the decor rule book and embrace a profusion of colour, pattern and exotic accessories, you could be ready for the hottest interiors trend this autumn – Moroccan style.

Vibrant textiles, tiles and sensual textures are key ingredients, and are an instant way to add warmth and personality to a space.

Best of all, to achieve this visual feast in your home, you don’t need to dig out your passport.

Inspired by the North African kingdom, designers have brought souk style to the high street.

There’s no greater enthusiast for this look than Maryam Montague, author of Marrakech By Design.

“I fell in love with Moroccan design ten years ago and I’ve never looked back,” she says, as she takes me on a tour of her home in Marrakech.

It was built by her architect husband in a modern Moroccan style with domes, a spiral staircase and a small casbah-like tower, and is named Peacock Pavilions after the exotic pets which roam and screech in the garden.

“In a world filled with beige interiors, Moroccan decor seems the perfect antidote,” Montague says.

“It’s a refuge for addicts of saturated colour, and a haven for devotees of intricate pattern. This decor is not for the minimalist, but for the modern-day maximilist. Lovers of the plain and simple might as well go home.”