Friday wear trend; Creating jobs, promoting local prints
She is simply elegant and sophisticated – not in a Dolce & Gabbana, a Monique Lhuiller, a Versace nor any of the international clothing line.
Her curves in the long dress look undeniably flawless as her long, elegant frame shows off just the right amount of skin.
She moulds the look with a classy heel with a pointed toe, embellished with an eye-catching diamond detailing the ankle strap. The body ensemble is sealed with just enough layer of makeup and a matching bead necklace and wrist beads.
Ama, or the ‘chocolate lady’, as friends lovingly call her, is flawless, irrespective of what she wears. Indeed, she moves with the trend but is still in touch with her African roots—her apparel is incomplete without the beads and African prints. She likes her jeans with kaba. And on Sundays, her kaba and slit is sure to precede her flowing choir robe.
Fortunately, she has just found that fashion source that perfectly meets her desire to project her heritage in a competitive modern world - Wear Ghana. It is an emerging Ghanaian fashion label.
In years past, Africa was seen only as a cradle of anthropological inspiration for international fashion brands, but , its homegrown talents are standing up and being counted, while riding the wave of interest in the continent’s couture.
Emerging names and labels
Today, established names such as: Xuly Bet in Paris; Duro Olowu in London; Jewel By Lisa in Lagos; Marianne Fassler in Johannesburg, and Kofi Ansah of Ghana, are excitingly motivating younger talents, while more and more websites, African fashion weeks, magazines, boutiques and schools are blossoming, according to CNN.
The Chief Executive Officer of Wear Ghana, Ms Awura Abena Agyeman, explains the impetus driving her dream to clothe the trendy culturally sensible lady of the times.
“I’m so in love with what I do, and I’m challenged to do even better with the deep interest that clients like Ama Choco show in my work,” she stated enthusiastically
“I think the local patronage can be traced to the Friday Wear Initiative that was introduced in 2004. For the first time, African prints were being worn to the office. People who would never have worn the prints were forced to do so. Many of these people are fashionable and so started using the prints in a more interesting way,” she said.
Friday Wear Programme
The “National Friday Wear Programme" is an initiative aimed at projecting a unique Ghanaian identity through the extensive use of local fabric and designs as business wear.
The programme, initiated by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and President's Special Initiative, in collaboration with the private sector, sets Fridays for all public officers and the private sector, as much as practicable, to wear locally designed garments produced from locally manufactured fabrics.
The initiative is aimed at projecting a unique Ghanaian identity through the extensive use of local fabric and designs as business wear.
The interest in local fabrics is not limited to Ghanaians alone; it is also popular among tourists.
The international patronage, she says, has also seen remarkable progress. “I think it can also be traced to how locals are now patronising them; such that tourists come to Africa, they get intrigued by the beauty of the prints, they buy a lot to take back, their friends see them and want some, and this sparks a craze for prints,” she observed.
Custom-made clothes have been part of the fashion culture in Ghana for centuries, where people take their fabrics to their local seamstresses and tailors to turn them into clothes that fit perfectly.
This way of getting clothes is the foundation of the fashion industry in Ghana. However, in the last two decades or so, that has been changing and people are now patronising already made clothes from designers or fashion shops.
“I started thinking about African prints while working at the New York University's Study Abroad Project Site here in Ghana,” Awura Abena recalls. “The love of the foreigners for the prints made me realise it was a gold mine…. Somewhere along the line, I developed an interest in fashion and realised people liked my designs.”
“I wanted to help revive the textile industry,” she says. “Initially, together with my brother, I was going to build a platform that would bring designers, textile companies, and corporate Ghana together. With time, my passion for fashion and African prints took me out of the banking industry.”
Awura Abena resigned her job at Procredit to start her company when she knew where her heart really belonged.
With today’s hybridised taste in clothing which has seen many a kaba worn over jeans trousers or skirts, some protagonists have expressed the fear that the adorable slit and kaba may one day become history, but the Wear Ghana boss believes that kaba and slit will forever be trendy.
“I think kaba and slit will always have a place in our culture,” she stresses. “It will always be the outfit for social events, including funerals and naming ceremonies.”
Awura Abena is thrilled that African prints are very versatile and are now being used in exceptionally creative ways to make suits, bags, shoes, scarves and others.
“I think if we should conduct a research on the patronage of African prints, we will find out that it is being used in more diverse ways and for more trendy outfits than before”, she predicts. Players in the fashion industry are optimistic that the growing interest among young people will serve as a catalyst for the growth of the sector.
Copying blindly
But with Western culture influencing the fashion sense in Ghana through television, some fashion designers are increasingly throwing morality into the gutter; clothes showing cleavages are in vogue. Very few people sew their slits and skirts without exposing their thighs.
Akua Nyarkoa, an ardent local fabric patron, comically sums up the wardrobe disaster that comes with these designs. She says, “It is unfortunate that some ladies just copy the whites and end up going to church dressed like cocktail waitresses in indecent costumes, showing too much skin.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Flex Trendz, another emerging fashion label, Miss Edith Ovulley, is also unhappy about the negative trend and says some local designers are copying blindly from Westerners.
“It is true that clients dictate what we should design for them; however, it is important that we advise our customers based on the socio-cultural environment we find ourselves,” she said.
“Our culture is absolutely important. Besides, it is necessary to consider the vital stats of the client and the body shape as different styles may be suitable for plump or slim persons.
“For today’s generation, keeping trendy with the luxurious Versaces and their likes is not their headache because they are defining their individualistic sense of style by choosing younger, up and coming designers and, above all, choosing home-grown talents. This is a promising future for the industry,” Edith said .
So for Ama and her ilk, the kaba and slit may be down but will never be out.
At a time all Ghanaians, including President John Dramani Mahama, are making a case for patronising made-in-Ghana goods, the Friday wear concept has achieved a lot that could become a benchmark for the campaign for patronising locally produced products.
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