Fast Co: Photo Essay: The Biker Chicks Of Marrakesh
Life is amazing… Hot, gutsy lady bikers in colorful burkas. What FUN! Mourad, check it out!
You’ve probably never seen a biker gang quite like this. In photographerHassan Hajjaj’s latest series, “Kesh Angels,” the lady motorcyclists of Marrakesh, Morocco wear polka-dot abaya and Nike-branded djellaba, posing on their bikes against brightly-painted walls. The juxtaposition of traditional Islamic dress with biker-tough posturing and Western branding upends stereotypes of Muslim women as anti-modern and ultra-conservative. They have a superhero quality on these motorcycles, mugging and posing like urban Power Rangers.
The 53-year-old Hajjaj was born in Marrakesh but grew up in London, where he was obsessed with clubbing, hip-hop, and reggae, influences reflected in the eye-popping color schemes of these photographs. The models are his friends, and he designs their outfits himself, using knock-off brand-name fabrics he buys at London and Marrakesh markets.
Marrakesh is a city overrun with motorcycles, and female bikers are as common as male. Motorcycling is seen as a convenient form of transportation. Not so in the States, where being a “biker chick” still has a certain taboo. “Hajjaj’s approach is to toy with the perceptions of Arabic culture and the relationship between East and West, recasting iconic images and allowing shafts of 21st-century light to reenergize the encounter,” art critic Kelly Carmichael once wrote about the artist.
Chez Froggie 