Le Cabanon
The third collection of The Niche Society is called Le Cabanon.
It takes its name from my godmother’s house on the seashore of Bouznika, Morocco — a place where my family spent every August of my childhood. August, famously, is the month when time slows, when France pauses, and when days stretch endlessly under the sun.
At first, it was a simple wooden house, built in what was then a small fishermen’s village. Later, at the request of the King of Morocco, these cabins were transformed into villas. When my godmother met her husband, who owned this one, she began decorating it — first in white and blue, then in softer tones of salmon and desert hues.
Mornings started on the terrace, overlooking the sea, with breakfast and the cake for which only she held the recipe. Days unfolded on the shore, among the rocks, with her husband showing us the marine life which inhabited them — always observing, always releasing. My mother and I would then swim to the fisherman’s boats and back.
I spent hours in the kitchen, drawn by curiosity and scent, watching lunch and dinner take shape. Her family had once owned a restaurant, and their cook prepared the most unforgettable couscous, and skewers of monkfish, coriander, and smoke.
As the sun began to set, everyone returned, freshly bathed, dressed in kaftans and djellabas found in souks or made by hand. The living room filled with the aroma of grilled almonds, spiced olives, and the sound of ice against glass for it was time for apero. We watched the horizon fade, and after supper we would listen to music and dance or play cards and read — before beginning again the next day.
Twenty years later, those rocks stand nearly empty, the creatures gone, the village transformed. The Cabanon still stands, though we have all grown, and Bouznika is no longer the quiet village it once was.
Wherever I travel, I find myself seeking out cabanons — in Les Goudes, Marseille, or l’Anse de Méjean near Toulon. To wake with nothing between you and the sea but a warm cup of coffee, to spend a day guided only by light, salt air, and the rhythm of the waves — that, to me, is luxury.
This collection is a tribute to one of my personal icons, whom I share the passion of Cabanons and animals with, and who I will never have the honor of meeting.
Le Cabanon is an invitation to slow down — and to live together, in simplicity.