Are You Wondering If There Is A Ghana Fashion Industry? Yes, It Just Doesn’t Include You!!
Do you work in the fashion circles of Ghana? Do you go to the various fashion shows and showcase, or model, or even organize them? Have you done this for months or years and still asked the question or questioned if there is even a fashion industry due to the fact you do not see any clear organization or financial benefits that can sustain your life style? Then the answer to your wonder is as our title states “Yes, It Just Doesn’t Include You”.
Working in Ghana, many people have asked if there is even a fashion industry. We see fashion shows once or twice a month, hundreds of models strutting their legs on the runway and not getting paid, the best of our best desginers are just capable of renting a shop after getting grants from the government, bloggers are making just about no money, photographers only survive on wedding shoots, and for everyone else from stylists, to make up artists to pr, they are just hanging around.
So it is easy to wonder if there is even a fashion industry in Ghana. Because these no money activities is not representative of an industry in anyway, this is simply a mixed circle of philanthropists, egotists, artists, aspirants that survive via their external activities or corporate sponsors, being everything but professionals. By saying that, it’s not to say they do not produce professional quality work or services, it’s to say only a handful can claim their role in the Ghana fashion as a profession or a full time occupation. So technically it’s just a group of friends and/or people that have a passion for fashion, or want to prove their are the Ghana version of something they saw on TV.
So doesn’t this confirm that there isn’t an industry? on the contrary it doesn’t. The reality is there is an industry, and this Ghana fashion industry is booming, it’s growing and there is lots of money coming in. Print culture is excelling and Ghana is the hub for it. Foreign countries are coming to Ghana for the fabrics and goods, and there are lots of exports being made.
The truth is the fashion industry in Ghana consists of the fabric producers, tailors, fashion boutiques, accessory craftsmen and so forth. Not the university fancy dressed students attending and walking on the runway. Those are just people that are enwrapped by the Western industry and wish to make it a reality in their country. And there is amazing work being done, however their effort and activities are disconnected from the interest of the general public, and that’s why it can not sustain and industry nor the individuals in it. And this is why in our short 3 years of blogging designers and others come and go, because even the top designer is unknown to the common Ghanaian.
Our business model and culture is different, in those countries, you have years of government intervention to develop the fashion institutions, years of policies by government to make sure their designers and creatives dominate their markets, years of fashion business focused education as oppose to our fashion schools here which are sewing and tailor based. You can’t just take the cap off the Western world and try to fit it on ours and expect all hairlines to fall in place. As glorious as the fashionista end of Ghana looks, the truth is the group of people standing around wondering if there is or isn’t a fashion industry are actually in the way of the real fashion industry. This is why some of our most successful designers in Ghana with shops across the country are some of the least popular in press and social circles, because they started off this the grass roots style of tailoring.
An industry is based on the economy, and it is created when people who wish to survive find a common skill or trade that they can apply to make resources to support their families and lifestyles, and then that progresses into and industry. As far as clothing in Ghana is concerned, these are the tailors and boutique owners, second hand clothing retailers, cloth importers, accessories craftsmen and more.
Most are from low class families, most uneducated or limited in such fields, and are not as flashy or fabulous enough to be in the same circles as the well dressed degree holding, internet savvy, fashion show attending, blogger, model, designer that came straight out of college, and began their fashion journey with no occupational plans insight, but simply because ‘Hey I like to do this’….And then after being hit by real life they start to ask…..Is There no industry in Ghana?
