The Color of Fig: Our Garments and Our North African Home Gardens

Fig is one of those odd and exoticized fruits that people either love or are scared of. Being a native fruit of Algeria and North Africa, they are rather a home staple there. Living abroad morphs figs, and countless other things, into images that survive only in memory. The color of fruit, the smell, the texture, all bring to mind faded recollections of childhood; an open balcony, a wooden surface so high, you can barely glimpse what sits atop it because you’re still small, a lace-trim table runner, the fruity aroma filling a sunlit living room on a hot summer afternoon and you haven’t yet learned how to spell August. Fig doesn’t carry grand meaning by any means on its own, but it carries familiarity and a sense of comfort that we cherish.

Distance and Memory in Design

In other words, when someone leaves home, objects and visuals once taken for granted acquire a new clarity. Colors, textures, and shapes reappear in memory with more emotional force. For House of Yamina, some of these recollections surface in unexpected ways: the muted tone of a fig’s flesh, the gentle gradient of its skin, the irregularities in its form. Sure these elements may be motifs chosen for decoration. However, they’re also familiar traits that naturally influence the color palette, silhouettes, and material choices of the brand’s garments.

The Women Behind the Landscape

Across North Africa, the women who raised us shaped our relationship to home more than any object or place. Their routines defined the atmosphere: the way they prepared food, shopped for fruit, cleaned the garden, chose ingredients, or argued about which region grows the best figs. Their hands carried the household, their decisions set the tone, and their taste quietly influenced everything. Matriarchy in this context is operational. It’s woven through the texture of ordinary life. These women didn’t announce themselves as cultural pillars, they quietly held everything together.Decades later, their influence shows up in habits, preferences, and the subtle ways we perceive aesthetics. It is these understated, persistent touches of memory that often guide design decisions without conscious planning.

Figs in the Photos

In one recent photoshoot, figs appeared alongside garments as an unplanned but fitting companion. Their soft, muted tones complemented the clothing, creating visual cohesion while subtly referencing heritage. They were not exactly meant as symbolic props. Instead, they reflected the quiet, grounded presence of North African women and the landscapes of everyday life that shaped the founder’s earliest memories. One of the pieces from the Tale of Legacy collection (a blazer, pants, and vest set) is colored in a pale pink reminiscent of a barely ripe fig’s interior. The shade is understated, soft, and a little shiny, like the duality of memory and design: familiar yet refined. The connection between the fruit and the fabric color is intuitive, emerging naturally from the designer’s sensibilities rather than a thematic or a romanticized decision.

Designing from Heritage

House of Yamina’s approach demonstrates how heritage can inform design without being literal. North African womanhood, Mediterranean landscapes, and the small gestures of childhood are present in color choices, textures, and shapes. The references are quiet, often imperceptible at first glance, but they inform the overall tone, balance, and feel of the garments.

Heritage, in this sense, is less about motifs or patterns and more about visual memory embedded in everyday objects, natural colors, and forms. The fig, in both fruit and color, is one of these markers. Perhaps it’s a small tangible link between past and present, home and atelier.