The leather souk occupies the alleys immediately surrounding the Chouara tannery, and the smell is unavoidable long before you arrive. The shops sell everything produced from the tannery below: babouche slippers in dozens of colours, leather bags and pouches, belts, wallets, camel-leather ottomans, and sheepskin coats. The shops on the upper terraces facing the tannery vats are the most famous (and most tourist-targeted); better prices and similar quality can be found in the alleys away from the tannery viewing terraces.
Babouches — the pointed Moroccan slipper in yellow goatskin or coloured leather — are the quintessential Fez purchase and genuinely useful at home. Quality varies: good babouches have even stitching and leather soles thick enough to last. The rough-edge bright-coloured ones are tourist grade; the plain yellow or tan ones with turned-over edges are what locals actually wear and hold up better.