The House
A house that gives its word.
House of Dmana is a Casablanca house for vintage and antique Moroccan pieces. We begin with vintage caftans because they are the pieces people most want to be sure of, and the ones most often misdescribed.
What dmana means
In Moroccan Darija, dmana is a guarantee: a surety, the word someone gives that a thing is what they say it is. In a medina, a merchant’s dmana was worth more than any label. You bought from the house whose word held.
We took the name because it describes the only promise that matters with vintage and antique pieces: that the piece is genuine, that it is as shown, and that someone answers for it.
How a piece enters the house
Found, examined, numbered.
Found in Morocco
Every caftan is a vintage piece from a Moroccan home, wardrobe or dealer we know. We do not buy blind, and we do not sell new makes.
Examined seam by seam
Cloth, braid, buttons, lining and repairs are looked at in daylight. What we find is written down and told to you.
Cleaned and rested
Pieces are cleaned as the cloth allows, then hung and left alone before they are photographed.
Photographed twice
Once in the studio, once in the medina. Light and colour are finished digitally, and so are the backdrop of the studio pictures and the wider street of the home page picture; the caftan is checked against the photograph, picture by picture.
Named and numbered
Each piece receives a Darija name for what it evokes, and a Dmana number that stays with it.
Beyond caftans
Vintage caftans are where we begin. The house also deals in the other vintage and antique pieces a Moroccan house holds: textiles, silver, ceramics, furniture. They will be shown here as each is examined and numbered. Until then, ask us what you are looking for.
The house’s word
If a piece is not as we described it, tell us and we will make it right. That is the whole of the guarantee, and it is the reason for the name.