Decolonising Ghana Fashion Education and Training History

Abstract

Ghana's fashion scene is increasingly expanding and has greatly contributed to clothing the society, yet, the history of her fashion education and training spanning from the precolonial colonial, postcolonial and contemporary times has received little or no academic attention. Telling the history of fashion education and training is a scholarship gap that needs to be filled. It is one of the ways towards the decolonisation of Ghanaian fashion historicity. The study, therefore, traces briefly the art-historical accounts of fashion design and fashion education in Ghana from precolonial, colonial, postcolonial to contemporary times with emphasis on 1920 to present. The study revealed that fashion design education and training in Ghana predates colonialists' invasion. It was handed down from generation to generation through the apprenticeship system, which was indigenous formal education. The erroneous perception that Ghanaian fashion designers had no formal education in fashion design before the coming of the colonialists must be downplayed and contested.