A different casual Friday in Ghana

Over the years, there has been calls by the East African countries to ban mivumba to protect their ailing textile industries.

In West Africa, Ghana too is keen on protecting her textile industry, not by banning mivumba, but by officially allocating a day on which to don African wear.

Duck into any government office in Ghana on Fridays and you will notice a little extra splash of colour. Loose shirts with geometrical patterns have replaced stiff pin-striped suits. Bright flowing wax-print dresses have nudged out conservative skirts and blouses. This is ‘casual Fridays,’ African style.

The government is urging civil servants to abandon their westernised business attire in favour of local fabrics. But unlike in the US and elsewhere, where khakis and an open collar is the boss’ way of bringing a little ease to the end of the week, Ghana’s ‘National Friday Wear,’ has bigger things on its mind. Its goal is two-fold: to celebrate African culture and, more importamt to create jobs by reviving the ailing textile industry.

Ghanaians, like the citizens of nearly every African country, predominantly wear second-hand clothes from Europe and North America. For the poor, used clothing is the cheapest way to dress.

Hip young urbanites who have money to spend consider second-hand clothes fashionable. Even cabinet ministers have been spotted buying western suits in Kantamanto, a disused railway yard turned used clothing market. But it has taken its toll on what was once a thriving industry here.

Ghana imports $43m worth of used clothes annually, more than any other African nation, says the International Trade Centre, in Geneva.

However, its clothing exports, mostly socks, totalled just $4m last year. The country that once employed 25,000 textile workers now has just 3,000.

Enter ‘National Friday Wear.’ It took little to persuade Kofi Andoh, an accountant, to leave his jacket and tie in the closet once a week. “This place is very hot,” says Andoh, sporting the loose-fitting red and maroon shirt. “We should be allowed to wear this anytime.”

“You have to portray your culture,” says a woman, wearing a multi-coloured wax print dress featuring the logo of the Bank of Ghana, her employer.

Ghana has a tradition of creating stunning cloth. The pinnacle is the woven silk known as kente, worn off the shoulder toga-style by royalty in the Ashanti kingdom, an ethnic group in central Ghana.

Recently re-elected president John Kufuor donned one during his inauguration four years ago.

Ghanaians also adopted batik from Dutch traders from the East Indies. Wax prints, brightly coloured often fanciful patterns worn by women, are popular in Ghana as they are across West Africa. But under British rule, Africans who wanted to get ahead adopted the manners of their colonial masters. The trend continued even after Ghana became the first African colony to gain its independence, in 1957.

“If you wanted to look educated, you had to dress Western,” says Kofi Ansah, a Ghanaian fashion designer who studied at the Chelsea School of Art in London. In the 1980s, when other countries were promoting African identity, Ghanaian fabric developed a reputation for poor quality. “People only wore local fabrics because they couldn’t afford imported ones,” says Ansah.

He’s been at the forefront of trying to change that, working with Ghanaian Textile Printing to improve its products. Recently, he submitted the winning designs to the government’s competition for ‘National Friday Wear.’

“It is my dream to see Ghana develop a clothing industry,” Ansah says. He says there is a niche market for Ghanaian-designed clothes among African-Americans. “If we are not wearing our own stuff, how can we sell it elsewhere?” Ben Peasah, in charge of promoting Made in Ghana goods for the ministry of trade, appears on TV wearing Ghanaian clothing to boost “National Friday Wear.” “Relaxed, easy-going,” he says, wearing a white shirt with black and grey traditional African Adinkra symbols designed by Kofi Ansah. People have stopped him on streets to ask where he got the shirt. The Friday wear competition called for designs that were “unique, simple, functional and affordable.”

Affordability is the toughest criteria to achieve. The government is helping Ghana’s clothing makers produce shirts for about $15, cheap by western standards, but the price of a wardrobe of used clothes. Used clothes have cost jobs in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Senegal and Tanzania.

The textile union has called the used clothes market “a scavenging trade, where companies get their products practically free before converting them into huge profits.”

In Ghana, they call it abruni waawu, literally, ‘a white man has died.’ Isaac Antwi-Bonsu, chairman of the sellers at Kantamanto, says he welcomes the government’s move to urge Ghanaians to wear local clothes more often. But he opposes calls by clothing manufacturers in Africa to boost domestic textile industries by banning imports of second-hand clothes. “We are a poor country and used clothes are affordable,” he says.

The Christian
Science Monitor