As soon as Yves Saint Laurent took up Dar el Hanch, or Snake House, in 1966, it cast an everlasting spell on him. And it wasn’t just its being in his beloved Marrakesh: mysterious and magnetic, the winding riad – the site of several key entanglements for the couturier – would see its namesake reptile live forever in the designs it inspired.

Sittings editor: Hamish Bowles

Text by Kasia Maciejowska