Ghana’s vintage enthusiasts give new life to Western clothing waste

ACCRA, Dec 28 (Reuters) – As the sunlight set on a courtyard of delivery containers in Ghana’s cash Accra, youthful males and women of all ages in Pink Floyd, Grateful Useless and tie-dye tees bartered over military surplus jackets and Adidas sneakers even though a are living deejay spun Afrobeat classics.

The Vintage Gala, as 23-12 months outdated founders Prince Quist and James Edem Doe Dartey dubbed it, introduced with each other a motion of youthful classic fanatics pushing again versus the worldwide quick trend field by encouraging their friends to store secondhand.

“If you use outfits that had been built again in the day…you’re helping the atmosphere by not applying the uncooked components and other points needed to make new kinds,” Quist claimed, seated in front of the booth for his and Dartey’s on the internet shop, TT Vintage Retailer.

“The idea is just to inspire all people to thrift vintage, because secondhand goods aren’t 2nd class things,” Dartey extra. “Shopping classic can make recycling even superior.”

Ghana receives about 15 million objects of made use of clothes every single week from Western countries and China, offloaded in bulk, typically at negligible price ranges and questionable excellent. Close to 40% of this in the long run ends up in substantial city landfills, in accordance to the U.S. based mostly Or Basis.

A great deal of it passes by way of Accra’s Kantamanto, a single of the major garment markets on the continent, where by bales of utilised clothes are sold based on the envisioned good quality of the garments wrapped up inside of.

Hours ahead of dawn quite a few occasions per week, vintage lovers like Quist and Dartey comb by Kantamanto’s rivers of imported clothes, hunting for gems they can resell on Instagram pages with hundreds of followers in Ghana and abroad.

They imagine shopping for secondhand not only assists to reduce fashion’s environmental affect, but also lets them and their buyers to specific exclusive styles aside from present tendencies.

Their concept is very simple: acquire secondhand, make a variance.

“Clear away the entire notion that you only wear classic when you are bad, or you only put on thrifted things when you do not have revenue,” reported creative Myra Davis exterior the Classic Gala event.

“It is been listed here for years,” she claimed. “Why go and create much more when there’s extra than sufficient offered to you?”

Reporting by Francis Kokoroko and Cooper Inveen
Editing by Peter Graff

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