While I have been in Ghana for the last couple of weeks, I was given the opportunity to have clothing hand made for me from cloth with traditional prints. Many years ago, the cloth was hand printed and unique, but because of the spread of globalization cloth is being mass-produced and shipped to Ghana to be made into clothing. Even though this is the case, the fabric is still beautiful and unique to West Africa.

The seamstress who has come to the house we are staying in, Auntie Janet, made me two pieces of beautiful clothing: A dress in a traditional Ghanaian style along with a pair of overalls.

All over Accra, there are tailoring shops which offer handmade clothing from traditional Western Africa cloth. The cloth used to make clothes in Ghana can mean many different things. There are specific prints or designs used for school uniforms, funerals, etc. Often, the event can be identified from the clothing alone.

For example, when attending funerals, which are almost always hosted on Saturdays, Ghanaians will wear black and red print clothing. Because a funeral is a celebration of life, ordinary cloth is not appropriate for such a special event. Traditionally, the black and red attire signifies a grieving period in the community. Black is associated with grief and red is associated with danger and together these colors communicate the death of a loved one.

I recently learned that when the deceased was over the age of 70 at the time of their death the funeral attendant are clothed in white. In Ghana, white signifies victory or joy and is worn to rejoice the long life of their loved one.

Clothing worn on a daily basis is normally very bright and has a bold pattern. Ghanaians take great pride in how they dress, therefore tend to dress up more frequently than Americans do. Even with an influx of Westernized clothing it is still common to see men and women wearing traditional prints and clothing. In Ghana, the traditional cloth is called Kente. Kente is traditionally made by the Akan people of Ghana from places such as the Ashanti Kingdom. It is a mix of silk and cotton fabric hand woven into a large piece of Kente. In Akan, Kente is called nwentoma which means woven cloth. Today, handmade Kente is worn mainly for traditional events and has become quite expensive for the average Ghanaian.