Ghana has a deep history of textile craftsmanship and traditional clothing.
In recent years, Ghana has become a vibrant hub for fashion in Africa, characterized by a rich tapestry of traditional and contemporary styles. Kente cloth, Adinkra symbols, and colorful prints like Ankara have long been integral to Ghanaian culture.
Fashion in Ghana has seen a significant improvement over the years, thanks to its dynamic nature and the growth of the fashion industry. Today’s fashion in Ghana is a celebration of tradition and modernity, blending centuries-old craftsmanship with contemporary design sensibilities.
Traditionally before colonization, our forefathers both men and women were known to have wrapped their bodies in a way that covered their decency with normal cloths as well as Kente and adorned their bodies with beads.
The most common definition of fashion according to dictionaries is the prevailing style of dress or behavior at any given time.
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According to the editorial policy of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture, it is defined as “the cultural construction of the embodied identity.” By saying fashion is cultural, it means fashion is our way of life and something we can’t do away with as it is part of us.
Many at times when we hear fashion, we think of it as high class clothing designed by world acclaimed fashion designers like Louis Vuitton, Dior and the likes which are projected on the runway during fashion weeks. No, that is not the case, fashion goes beyond that, it encompasses different forms from street styles to formal office wear or our normal casual looks we opt for even when we’re walking our dogs and to these high end clothing we know of.
Ghana, our beloved country, a land blessed with friendly and hospitable people and full of riches has its own culture and traditions which are rich and vibrant. The kind of fashion we see today has not always been like that, we have our own fashion history as a country which dates back to precolonial days to colonial times and through to this modern era.
Although the Kente is our traditional cloth whose production firstly is traced back to Bonwire according to legends many years ago, it was mostly worn by royalty and on special occasions.
Then in colonial times, due to the introduction of Western culture, the traditional way of dressing was spiced up a bit and paved way for women to start wearing our famous ‘kaba and slit” with afro hair do as well as western clothes and hairdos which consisted of fascinators, gloves and socks.
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The late Mabel Dove Danquah, Wife of the late J. However, from what I’ve heard it was those who could afford and wife of prominent people like the beautiful wife of the late J.B Danquah who normally opted for these western clothing. This manner of dressing improved during colonial and post colonial era and has continued to do so up to this day.
Many different ways of dressing has evolved and continue to evolve in Ghana here and the world at large.
The Kente Cloth: A Symbol of Ghanaian Heritage
Kente is a Ghanaian textile, officially recognised as a geographical indication (GI) of Ghana to safeguard its authenticity and origin. It is made of hand-woven strips of silk and cotton. Historically, the fabric was worn in a toga-like fashion among the Asante, Akan and Ewe people. According to Asante oral tradition, it originated from Bonwire in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
Due to the popularity of kente cloth patterns, mass-produced prints with the kente patterns have become widespread throughout West Africa, and by extension the whole of Africa. Globally, the print is used in the design of academic stoles in graduation ceremonies, worn mostly by African American as well as the African Diaspora.
Kente comes from the word kɛntɛn, which means "basket" in the Asante dialect of the Akan language, referencing its basket-like pattern. In Ghana, the Akan ethnic group also refers to kente as nwentoma, meaning "woven cloth".
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Asante oral tradition give the origins of Kente to an individual from Bonwire who introduced a loom among the Asante from Bono Gyaman during the reign of Nana Oti Akenten in the 17th century. Another oral source states that it was developed indigenously by individuals from Bonwire during the reign of Osei Kofi Tutu I, who were inspired by the web designs of a spider.
It is plausible that early Asante weaving took influence from the Gyaman region, although likely in times previous to when oral traditions relate, these early cloths of blue and white cotton stripes bear striking resemblance to Bondoukou cloths and some others in West Africa.
In the 18th century, Asantehene Opoku Ware I was documented by Danish agents Nog and L.F. Rømer, to have encouraged expansion in craft work. The Asantehene set up a factory during his reign to innovate weaving in the Ashanti Empire. This was the early stages of Kente production.
Some of his subjects were able to spin cotton, and they wove bands of it, three fingers wide. When twelve long strips were sewn together it became a "Pantjes" or sash. One strip might be white, the other one blue or sometimes there was a red among them...[Asantehene] Opoke [Ware] bought silk taffeta and materials of all colours.
According to oral tradition, Ewe weaving goes back to the 16th century when weavers were among the migrants who resettled in Ghana from Benin Republic and Western Nigeria. In the 18th century Keta became the centre of weaving among Ewe migrants who had settled in Southern Ghana. The earliest description of weaving among the southern ewe was from a report in 1718 by a Dutch West India Company official during his visit to Keta.
Weaving is done on a wooden loom in which multiple threads of dyed fabric are pressed together. Weavers are typically apprenticed under a master weaver or company for a number of years before producing their own patterns. Gender has an influence on cloth production.
There exist hundreds of different kinds of kente patterns. Kente patterns vary in complexity, with each pattern having a name or message by the weaver. Ghanaians choose kente cloths as much for their names as their colors and patterns. Although the cloths are identified primarily by the patterns found in the lengthwise (warp) threads, there is often little correlation between appearance and name.
Names are derived from several sources, including proverbs, historical events, important chiefs, queen mothers, and plants. The cloth symbolizes high value.
Ahwepan refers to a simple design of warp stripes, created using plain weave and a single pair of heddles. The designs and motifs in kente cloth are traditionally abstract, but some weavers also include words, numbers and symbols in their work. Example messages include adweneasa, which translates as 'I've exhausted my skills', is a highly decorated type of kente with weft-based patterns woven into every available block of plain weave.
Today, there is a still a wide use of Kente cloth in events such as ceremonies and commencements. Many universities, such as Florida A&M University, wear an Academic stole. This historically black institution incorporates historically accurate African art through the use of Kente cloth stoles.
Traditionally, wearing a Kente cloth stole was a "college ritual of marking oneself with a visible sign of Africa" and "literally weaves ... wisdom of Africa" and incorporates the history and culture of African art.
In September 2025, Ghana gained GI status for the Kente. Under the GI status, only kente cloths woven using traditional techniques and in approved Ghanaian communities are allowed to use the name, as the law protects Kente as Ghana's intellectual property. Bonwire, Agotime Kpetoe, and Sakora Wonoo are the towns where Kente is traditionally woven and approved by the Ghana Ministry of Tourism. Only kente crafted in the selected communities may lawfully be sold as kente thanks to the new GI law.
Modern loom for weaving kente.
Controversies Surrounding Kente Cloth
In June 2020, Democratic Party leaders kneeled in the United States Capitol Visitor Center for 8 minutes and 42 seconds in protest, causing controversy by wearing stoles made of kente cloth to show support against systemic racism. While it was said to be an act of unity with African-Americans, many, including Jade Bentil, a Ghanaian-Nigerian researcher, voiced objection tweeting "My ancestors did not invent Kente cloth for them to be worn by publicity (obsessed) politicians as 'activism' in 2020".
There is also a controversy with Louis Vuitton's usage of a printed and monogrammed version of kente in their autumn-winter 2021 collection by American creative director Virgil Abloh, whose grandmother was Ghanaian. Additionally, questions of ownership of the woven craft, its image, and location of ateliers of production of kente. To this question of cultural appropriation, Abloh's response to the press in 2020 was: "Provenance is reality; ownership is a myth.
What Is The Cultural Importance Of Kente Cloth? - Art Across Cultures
The Work of Asaaba: A 3D Artist's Perspective on Ghanaian Fashion History
Asaaba combines her artistic talents, her skills in 3D art with her love for Ghanaian history by creating 3D characters and dressing them up in Ghanaian fashion styles. She has created art with fashion inspiration from as early as the 1960s and as recently as the 2010s. In her art, she try to capture everything from the hairstyles, shoes, and even poses!
This is why she gets really excited when people reply and tell her that they have seen similar fashions and poses in old family photos. Her research paid off!
In 2017, a friend of hers introduced her to a software called Daz3D and opened a whole new world of creativity and art via 3-dimensional modelling.
Siblings after Sunday church service, 1934.
Asaaba has always been interested in the history of the Gold Coast and Ghana. She remember her mum telling her about her childhood; about her mother, an illiterate but enterprising Makola trader; about her great-grandmother, a traditional priestess who could boast of clients in government and the intelligentsia; and about how life was under Nkrumah.
This fascination with history began when she was about 5 years old and flipping through a red leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica, looking at images of historical figures and listening to her parents read the lengthy paragraphs to her. She loved looking at the few old family photos we had and she would ask about the people and places in those old photographs.
In 2008, she left Ghana and went to university in Canada and was extremely homesick. She constantly looked up music videos, old movies, even articles about Nkrumah, stories about independence day and the like, just to keep home alive in her mind. There wasn't much material about Ghana online at the time, but as people uploaded more content, YouTube and GhanaWeb became her main source of Ghana-related material online.
In the mid-2010s, she began to take her learning more seriously. Women like Ruth Botsio, Hannah Kudjoe, Sophia Oboshie Doku, Dedei Ashikishan and Mabel Dove Danquah.
| Name | Contribution | Image |
|---|---|---|
| Hannah Kudjoe | Political Activist | |
| Ruth Botsio | Politician | |
| Sophia Oboshie Doku | Politician | |
| Mabel Dove Danquah | Journalist and Writer |
Through these Ghanaian history accounts, she also came across the Basel Mission's online archive which contains numerous images from the 19th and early 20th centuries in Ghana. She also learned about renowned Ghanaian photographers like James Barnor, J. K. Bruce Vanderpuije and Felicia Abban, Ghana's first female professional photographer. They photographed mostly the first half of the 20th century, documenting a people who had dignity and found joy in spite of the oppressions and indignities of colonization.
She used Pinterest to curate some of the most interesting images according to the decades they were created in. As she spent time examining the images, she began to notice fascinating things such as the beautiful hairstyles and clothing. She made threads focusing on ‘150 years of women's hairstyles in Ghana’, ‘Ghana Kaba and Slit fashion’, and ‘150 years of Gold Coast/Ghana women's fashion’.
Those threads were extremely well-received and she was happy to find out that other people were also interested in these topics. Some people online were even able to recognise people in some of these historical photographs. It was a very small step, but in a way, she feels she was able to help humanize some people who lived in Ghana before us.
If she had to choose a favourite decade for Ghana fashion - they're all so unique and stunning! - she'd go for the 1890s. Their garments were mostly free-flowing, long skirts; loose and frilly blouses; and the most beautiful gilded tekua hairstyles.
Fashion has evolved so much but one thing popped up in each decade she worked on is the kaba and slit. She first noticed the images when compiling the 1880s to 1890s period. Along with these garments, women mostly wore their hair braided, and they were decorated with gold or tied in a cloth, barely hiding the large braids. Some of the kaba and slit styles have survived to this day and remain a staple in the Christian Women's Fellowship circles.
There is still so much to discover about the Gold Coast and Ghana. She hopes more images are digitized so we can see the realities of our ancestors.
Asaaba is a history lover, occasional 3D artist, and feminist. She is a proud Ga woman and enjoys learning new things about Accra and other parts of Ghana. Asaaba spends her free time tweeting about everything and nothing, napping and dreaming up her next 3D piece.
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