Customized Prèt-a-Porter: West Africa’s Answer to the Quest for Sustainable Fashion

Abstract

The discourse on sustainable fashion has so far ignored two important perspectives; the contribution of fashion from Africa and how socio-cultural factors contribute to sustainability. The paper bridges this gap. It discusses the West African prèt-a-porter fashion production model which is undergirded by socio-cultural milieu of exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality. Customized prèt-a-porter is a limited-edition ready to wear model by Ghanaian and Nigerian fashion designers that ensures measured volume of production, demands high level of creativity, and proscribe sustainable laundry measures to ensure long-life span of clothes. The paper is a qualitative research study conducted in Lagos, Nigeria, and Accra Ghana between 2018 and 2021. It involved in-depth interviews of fashion designers in the two cosmopolitan cities on their experiences as fashion producers in Africa.

Keywords:

• sustainable fashion
• African fashion
• custom-made
• ready-to-wear

Introduction

The fashion and textiles industries are facing backlash because of the harmful impact of production on the environment. The fast fashion system of production has been criticized for its environmental and human exploitation across the globe (Crewe 2008; Johansson 2010; Assmann 2018). The frequency and volume of production create surplus that is not biodegradable and in the case of Ghana, ends up on its beaches (Hyde 2023). There is also the issue of toxins and chemical emission, water waste and depletion of resources (Kozlowski, Bardecki, and Searcy 2012). These have resulted in the calls for sustainable fashion (Brooks et al. 2017; Breen 2020). Sustainable fashion, simply put, is engaging in fashion production and consumption that is socially responsible. Thus, the cultivation of fibers, processing, designing, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of clothes are environmentally friendly. The majority of the literature on fashion sustainability reviews the negative impact of fashion and textile production in Western and Asian countries (Fletcher 2008; Joy et al. 2012), the strategies that fast fashion brands employ to mitigate the adverse effects of production (Assmann 2018), consumer behavior towards sustainability (Blazquez et al. 2020; Hartley 2021) and the dehumanizing circumstances of production in low-income countries through outsourcing (Crewe 2008; Kozlowski, Bardecki, and Searcy 2012). The debate on fashion sustainability rarely includes Africa, though the continent has become a dumping site for the disposal of surplus production by fast fashion brands. Second-hand clothing on the African market is a major source of environmental hazard, with significant percentage of clothes imported as waste (Hansen 2004; Lampel 2020; Doe 2022).

In January 2022, Isaac Kaledzi made a report for Deutsche Welle on how second-hand clothing is polluting the Ghanaian market and environment through waste, titled “Used Clothes Choke Both Markets and Environment in Ghana” (Kaledzi 2022). Amanor’s (2018) work on Ghana also captures the lack of infrastructure and social and environmental integrative plan to ensure that second-hand clothing trade becomes sustainable. Regarding sustainability, Botti (2019) writes about how Africa has become a fashion production hub for many Western brands. While proximity to Europe might be a factor, Botti questions the labor exploitation which may occur in this transaction as big fashion brands take advantage of the low-cost of labor in Africa. On the issue of local production of fashion, Smal (2016) has noticed that it is difficult for fashion businesses to operate from an environmentally sustainable focus in South Africa due to the lack of resources that are considered as environmentally sustainable. In Uganda, Kasirye and Maina (2021) observe that, there is very little support for ethical fashion brands as they are barely breaking even compared to those that give consumers cheap, low-quality clothes.

Other works on fashion production and designers from Africa acknowledge the creativity and innovativeness of contemporary designers (Alderman 2012; Rovine 2015; Jennings 2016; Gott et al. 2017), however, the literature is silent on how fashion production from the continent contributes to the debate on fashion sustainability. Contemporary designers have expanded the African fashion market by moving from the traditional bespoke system of production to the adoption of prèt-a-porter, mass production. This expansion shot fashion from Africa to the global fashion market. In the wake of the sustainable fashion discourse, we have failed to explore how the expansion of production in Africa supports or threatens sustainable fashion. Kasirye and Maina (2021) argue that, while fabrics from Africa are highly sought after by foreign fashion brands and designers, the cultural significance and narratives of Africans are omitted from the current buzz about sustainability. This paper addresses that gap in the literature. It discusses how the specific production and maintenance cultures of West Africans contributes unique insights to the environmental sustainability literature. It does so by analyzing the extent to which social and cultural practices that guide local consumption of fashion in turn influences the ways in which West African designers produce and maintain clothes. The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section of the paper, I discuss the method of research, which is followed by an engagement with literature on sustainable fashion. The third section is on the explanation of the socio-cultural milieu of exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality. The final section discusses West African prèt-a-porter production model, and the maintenance of locally produced clothes, teasing out how these two processes contribute to sustainable fashion.

The paper adopts a constructivist philosophy underpinned by qualitative research data and content analysis. It makes use of primary data gathered on the Lagos and Accra fashion industries between 2018 and 2021. The primary data comprises one focus group discussion with nine Nigerian female consumers and eighteen (5 males/13 females) interviews with Nigerian fashion designers as well as thirty (17 males/13 females) interviews with designers from Ghana. The interviews were transcribed word for word and analyzed using the MAXQDA qualitative analysis software. The secondary data was sourced from the social media space of fashion designers and the content analyzed according to the themes developed through the in-depth interviews.

My positionality as a Ghanaian researcher who had the privilege of studying with Nigerians during undergraduate and post-graduate studies was integral in forming a fundamental understanding of the social milieu of fashion in both countries. Beside my personal contact with Nigerians, Ghana and Nigeria share historical and linguistic similarities as post-British colonies. While I obvious had easy access to the Ghanaian fashion industry as a Ghanaian, I equally did not struggle to access the Nigerian industry. A Nigerian colleague in my postgraduate studies at the University of Ghana was extremely helpful in this regard, helping me with both logistics and contacts in Lagos. The use of English the lingua franca in both countries also ensured easy communication.

Sustainable fashion

The term sustainability as currently understood is traced to the Brundtland Report (Estoque 2020). In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development produced a report, popularly known as the Brundtland Report, titled “Our Common Future.” The report elaborates on the detrimental effect of human activities on the world and proposes Sustainable Development as the corrective measure to salvage the situation. Sustainability:

1) acknowledges the needs, in particular, the needs of the world’s poor, 2) recognizes the limitations imposed by technology and social organizations on the environment’s ability to meet these needs and 3) refers to activities that meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of the future generation.

(Assmann 2018, 60)

The report differentiated between three types of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social sustainability (Assmann 2018). The separation of these three tenets of sustainability created separate discourses that run the risk of vagueness and limited application. Thus, both academics and practitioners advocated for an integrated approach to sustainability that addresses the various components simultaneously (Giovannoni and Fabietti 2013). Scholars and activists argued that the various dimensions are interconnected and therefore, an integrative approach must be adopted and applied to discuss sustainability in different spheres of development.

The clothing and textiles industry has been identified as one of the major contributors of environmental hazards and climate change, producing 10% of global greenhouse emission (Allwood et al. 2006; Fibre2fashion 2022). The entire value chain, of production from cultivation to disposal involve toxic chemicals and adverse processes that affect the environment. Chen and Burns (2006) argue that natural fabrics such as cotton and wool are as equally harmful as artificial fabrics such as polyester and rayon. Cotton cultivation involves heavy use of pesticides and fungicides. Infact, “it is estimated that cotton uses 3% of the world’s farmland, but 25% of the world pesticides” (Chen and Burns 2006, 246). There are other chemicals used in harvesting and processing that are harmful, contradicting the “natural image” of cotton production to expose its adverse effects (Chen and Burns 2006). The non-renewable petroleum base of artificial fabrics such as polyester makes it nonbiodegradable, thus harmful to the environment. At the production stage, the burning of fossil fuel to create electricity for heating water and laundry, toxic chemicals for pre-treatment, dying and printing, the pollution of water resources with chemical waste and the expansive waste of water during manufacturing are some of the environmental concerns (Allwood et al. 2006; Kozlowski, Bardecki, and Searcy 2012; Brooks et al. 2017; Yoon, Lee, and Choo 2020).

While the direct effect of textile production on the environment could easily be deduced in the sustainability discourse, the subject of sustainable fashion is quite recent. According to Nietzche (cited by Aspers and Godart 2013) fashion as opposed to national costume is linked to modernity. Modernity is used to characterize the social, economic, and cultural developments from the 1970s (Venn and Featherstone 2006). Thus, when Bourdieu wrote about fashion in his work “Distinction” (Bourdieu 1984) he was the first to discuss fashion as a mainstream social phenomenon. In practice, there was a significant shift in fashion production and consumption in the 1980s. The economic crisis of the period collapsed the system of social stratification tied to consumption (Assmann 2018). Surplus income that financed lifestyle consumption was limited, hence, the social stratification lifestyle consumption was replaced by individual choice and preferences. Fashion houses in Europe and Asia responded by introducing fast fashion (Assmann 2018; Blazquez et al. 2020). Fast fashion refers to low-price clothes that move from the catwalk to a mass market by replicating current luxury fashion trends. It is characterized by a short lead-time, mass production, and quick inventory turnarounds, with up-to-date merchandise produced bi-weekly (Yoon, Lee, and Choo 2020). This is called the democratization of fashion (Carbonaro, 2005 cited in Johansson 2010). In Japan, consumers of the period combined hedonism and frugality in fashion consumption, thus, one could combine high-end fashion brands with low-end fast fashion brands. (Assmann 2018).

Countries in Africa experienced the economic crisis and fashion consumption differently. The period witnessed the importation of second-hand clothing to Africa. This inserted Africa into the fast-fashion system and global fashion consumption on a larger scale. Since the economic crisis restricted consumption, many could not afford new clothes, therefore, the influx of second-hand clothing afforded them stylish clothing at cheap prices. The second-hand clothing industry provided regular functional clothes for the people while they reserved locally produced clothes for social and cultural events. However, trade liberalization and the sudden interest of the former Eastern bloc in second-hand clothing changed the dynamics of the trade in the 1990s (Hansen 2004). Fast-fashion companies started exporting surplus clothes to Africa, while individuals from Africa could import second-hand clothes. Fast fashion encourages the rapid disposability of clothes (Yoon, Lee, and Choo 2020), therefore, while in the past, we would have been repairing, modifying, re-using clothing to obtain “maximum useful life” of textiles, it became useful to throw away torn or longer used clothes (Johansson 2010, 8). Blazquez et al. (2020) argue that on the average, UK consumers send 30 kg of clothing and textiles per capita to the landfill each year. Therefore, second-hand clothing, “are primarily exported to marketplaces in low-income countries as this provides the most profitable outlet” (Brooks et al. 2017, 494). Hansen (2014, 2) also notes that “countries in Sub-Saharan Africa form the world’s largest second-hand clothing destination, receiving close to 30 per cent of the total world exports.”

While Africa is not the only continent at the receiving end of this trade, Africa is wrongly inserted in this global trade. According to Hansen, as far back as the early 2000s, “in sorting and exporting second-hand clothes, the lowest-quality clothing goes to Africa” (2004, 3). Ghana and Nigeria are major importers of second-hand clothes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2022 Fibre2Fashion report on second-hand clothing shows Ghana has been the leading country of second-hand clothing since 2016 until 2021 when Kenya topped the chart. Nigeria remained at the third position from 2016 to 2021. Major markets such as Kantamanto in Accra, Ghana, and Katangua and China Town in Lagos, Nigeria are major centers for the trade of second-hand clothes. The environmental hazards caused by second-hand clothing importation cannot be overemphasized. In the case of Ghana, Fibre2Fashion notes that:

In Ghana, some 15 million used garments pour into the capital, Accra every week from UK, EU, US, and Australia. As per Greenpeace report, an estimated 40 per cent of the garments are of such inferior quality that they are considered worthless on arrival and end up eventually being dumped in a landfill. This means that about 6 million pieces of apparel leave Kantamanto Market every week as waste. (Fibre2fashion 2022)

This waste sometimes finds its way into drains and other openings where they choke drainage or on the landfills where they are burnt, releasing toxins and chemicals into the atmosphere.

The issue of fast fashion and sustainability has been under critical review for the past few years. The Rana Plaza factory incident in 2013 was a wakeup call for fashion stakeholders. The Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, which housed five garment factories collapsed and killed 1132 people injuring more than 2500 (IOB (International Labor Organization) n.d). The incident led to a questioning of the moral, social, environmental, and economic implications of clothing production by big fashion brands. Fast fashion brands have taken advantage of the transnational labour regime where wage differentials derive competitive advantage, to set up factories in low-income countries (Crewe 2008; Kozlowski, Bardecki, and Searcy 2012). The human exploitation and slavery associated with the sweatshop factories that produce fashion houses have been documented systematically. Most of the workers at these factories are women who work at an unusual pace for wages that are not sustainable. According to Crewe “in one of the Lee Cooper factories in Ras Jabel (Tunisia), 500 women work furiously, eyes down, muscle clenched, amid the heat and noise of huge grey factory” (Crewe 2008, 28). He goes further to report that, “the average pace is three tasks per minute and there are eight lines, each with more than 60 people and each producing 2000 garments per day” (Crewe 2008, 28). Kieran Breen (2020) points out that these sweat shops can also be found in developed countries such as the United Kingdom. She writes on the modern-day slavery operated by fast fashion houses in Leicester. She discusses the cases of poor wages (some being paid as low as £3 as against the minimum wage of £6.50), as well as the poor conditions under which garments are produced. These workers are mostly black and Latino migrant women whose labor are exploited daily (Breen 2020).

The moral issues, the waste coupled with the emission of chemicals and toxins emissions have been the fundamental concern of stakeholders advocating for sustainable fashion. Sustainable fashion is used interchangeably with concepts such as “ethical fashion,” “eco-fashion,” “green fashion.” While these concepts capture a comprehensive approach to sustainable fashion, the focus has been on the reduction of waste through different approaches such as reduced consumption, improved production processes, or recycling and upcycling practices (Binotto and Payne 2017). Some fashion brands have responded to the criticism and have established mechanisms that ensure less disposability like Inditex’s (the parent company of ZARA) “Closing the Loop” and “Join Life” projects (FashionUnited 2022). Critics question the intent of these projects as to whether they are altruistic or market strategies to consolidate their market positions (Johansson 2010; Assmann 2018).

Regardless of intent, a number of strategies have been developed to reduce waste. Key among these are recycling and upcycling. Another key concern has been to reduce production volumes. Maldini and Balkenende (2017) analyzed 27 relevant publications that discuss the strategies to reduce volume production and identified six main strategies that can be adopted to reduce surplus production: (S1), service-based fashion systems (S2), multifunctional, transformable and modular garments (S3) design for slowness and longevity (S4), design for repairing (S5) and user involvement in design and/or manufacture (S6) (Maldini and Balkenende 2017, 234).

One sustainable fashion strategy that seems to combine most of the strategies mentioned by Maldini and Balkenende (2017), that has gained quite a bit of traction academically is “Slow Fashion.” It is a counter movement to fast fashion that values quality, care, and long-term thinking (Flower 2015). According to Fletcher (2010, 262), “slow fashion is not business-as-usual…. Nor is it production-as-usual but with long lead time. Slow fashion represents a blatant discontinuity with the practices of today’s sector; a break from the values and goals of fast (growth based) fashion.” Clark (2008) posits that, the local culture is integral in the production of slow fashion. Clark agrees with Parkins and Craig’s (2006) explanation that “the local must be defined more than at the level of the locale. It is attributed with the meaning through the complex composite of flow of people, goods and services and representations that occur from, to and between it” (Parkins and Craig 2006, 72 cited in Clark 2008, 430). Thus, designers must understand the local culture, the meanings and ascriptions within the context and integrate them in the production process. This will produce a “change away from businesses taking a quantitative approach, based on maximizing consumption (leading to increased waste) to a more qualitative and circular approach to production” (Clark 2019, 316). Thus, production requires the “understanding of the different speeds of activity that define the significant role of sustainability against social, cultural, economic and ecological systems of change” (Chon 2021, 380). What started off as a fashion concept has now gradually evolved into a movement that defines contemporary sustainable fashion landscape from the perspective of designers, producers, and consumers (Chon 2021).

Ironically, these sustainable fashion strategies have always been integral in fashion production in West Africa. While contemporary fashion designers in West Africa seek to upscale production, their strategy remains framed within sustainable production tenets. In a world of capitalism where profit is driven by economy of scale, the fashion production milieu of West Africa restricts high profitability that results from increased production. Though West Africa is battling with environmental hazards caused by fashion waste created through imported clothes, local designers are careful not to replicate the process through their work. Though designers have expanded production from the custom-made model to ready-to-wear with increases in the volume of production, they continue to be guided by the milieu of exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality of fashion consumption, that restricts large volume production. This limited volume of production prevents surplus and subsequently, waste. Most designers are also intentional about the use of “African cloth” for their work which comes with special laundry processes that reduce the emission of toxins during laundry. In the subsequent sections, I show how culture and the social perspective of consumption in West Africa has produced a model of production which I label as Limited-edition Production and which I argue is a sustainable alternative to the dominant production models of the West. The discussion starts with an explanation of the socio-cultural milieu of exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality.

Contextualizing exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality

I grew up in Ghana and was thus immersed in a socio-cultural milieu that I did not necessarily pay attention to closely. Over the last decade, however, I have observed the socio-cultural milieu that underpins fashion consumption in Nigeria and Ghana very closely thus gaining deep insights into the social meaning that underpins these consumption practices. Sewing of clothes in West Africa was introduced on a bespoke basis (Byfield 1997). Ordinarily, customers would walk into the shops of seamstresses and tailors to order custom-made clothes. This bespoke method offers consumers exclusivity, uniqueness and individuality, a social milieu that has defined fashion consumption and sustained the bespoke business all these years. Exclusivity in fashion is when clothes is used to assert the social and economic status of the wearer. Fashion for a long time has been a basis for class stratification in many societies (Simmel 1957; Aspers and Godart 2013) including West African society. Through dress choices, upper classes maintain their social and economic role, to the exclusion of other classes. In the West African context, exclusivity was achieved through the social and economic value of the cloth used for sewing. Hand woven fabrics such as Aso ke and Akwete in Nigeria (Oyeniyi 2012: Ikegwu and Uzuegbu 2015) and Kente (Fening 2006) in Ghana are highly esteemed fabrics. In the traditional bespoke system of sewing, customers ensure that fabric selected ensure exclusivity. In Nigeria, Bobie (2020) observed that, due to the importance of fashion exclusivity, it is common for people from the lower-classes to wear high-valued cloth during special occasions. The clothes serve as a temporary conduit of socio-cultural mobility during cultural and social functions. Fening (2006) has also argued that Kente is no longer the preserve of royals and the upper-class in Ghana; during rites of passage such as marriage ceremonies, most couple now wear Kente cloth. Though the consumption of the cloth has expanded beyond the upper classes, their social and economic value in relation to other fabrics remains. Other fabrics found in Ghanaian and Nigerian societies in order of socio-economic value are Lace, George, wax print, tie and dye or Adire (Nigeria) and material (generic name for foreign fabrics).

Uniqueness refers to the style or design of the clothes. Every individual prefers to sew styles that are unique, peculiar, exceptional and cannot easily be replicated. Styles are adopted and fashioned to indicate one’s unique sensibilities. Thus, besides selecting cloth to assert socio-economic status, albeit it temporarily, the cloth must be sewn in a style that is unique to the wearer. Betty, a middle-aged participant of the study puts the phenomenon in perspective when she remarked “we [Nigerians] are such that, what you wear, I don’t want to wear the same though we all follow trend.”

Individuality is on one hand the ability to project one’s personality through clothes and on the other hand the production of clothes based on the specific measurement of an individual. Thus, custom-made clothes are based on both an individual’s measurement and personality. Hannah, a participant in the study explains the individuality tenet when she states “no matter how you look and your shape, if you meet a very good seamstress the person will package you well, some of them re-package you.”

These social tenets of consumption are not mutually exclusive nor their definitions static. For example, in contemporary fashion, unique designs can add value to socially lower valued cloth to attain exclusivity while the vice versa can occur with socially valued cloth sewed casually for everyday functional use. Nonetheless fashion, however, applied must offer consumers personal distinction within prevailing trends. Therefore, as emerging designers within an already established traditional industry, seek to upscale their businesses through the integration of global techniques and applications of production as well as marketing strategies, contemporary designers must negotiate a fine line between local and global demands to produce clothes that reach beyond the national borders but are guided by the knowledge of consumption practices in their societies. This fine balancing act is achieved with the adoption of the limited-edition production strategy.

Customized prèt-a-porter production model

A novel feature of contemporary fashion designers from Africa is the extension of production from bespoke clothing to ready-to-wear clothes. While they are not the first generation of designers from Africa to venture into the ready-to-wear market, the novelty lies with the scale of production and accessibility by wider market. The first generation of recognized fashion designers from Africa started local production of ready-to-wear clothes but catered to the high political and economic classes of their countries (Jennings 2011). Contemporary designers serve a wider market of different socio-economic classes. In a ready-to-wear system, a customer cannot walk into the factory with fabric and be measured. The designer does all the job from sourcing of fabrics to measurement, sewing and marketing. However, through all these steps of production, designers must be mindful of the consumption preferences of consumers, specifically, how to produce trendy “impersonal” clothes for consumers who prefer personalized clothing. While this poses a challenge, contemporary designers have surmounted it in ways that do not only satisfy consumers but also protect the environment from waste that comes from the disposability of ready-to-wear clothes.

Zena, a fashion designer in Nigeria who has been in the industry for more than ten years had to struggle at the beginning of her ready-to-wear production system because it was difficult for people to accept that already produced clothes could offer them the exclusivity, uniqueness, and individuality they preferred. Zena learned that, to sustain her business, large volumes of production was not idle. She explains that, though every designer would want a large market share, you would not want your product to be “that poof! it is everywhere,” therefore she adopted what she “call[s] limited-edition. I can have a piece in 10 or 12 and that is it.” When Zena produces a design, she makes only about ten or twelve pieces of that design. Another challenge is that these 10 or 12 pieces of a design are also, each, uniquely designed. Thus, a design is not definite but serves as a framework through which twelve unique styles are developed for twelve different consumers.

While Zena’s production is on a seemingly small-scale, well controlled system, which can be managed on the limited-edition strategy, Laurie, a Ghanaian based, Ivorian-born designer shows how she applies the strategy on a larger scale of production. Laurie stocks different shops in cities such as Lagos, Bamako, Dakar, Abidjan, Paris, and Geneva. In one of her collections, she made three thousand (3000) pieces of clothes to be distributed across the various outlets. Though she spoke about the financial constraint that restricts large volume production, producing 3000 pieces for about 10 outlets across the globe was a conscious decision to avoid the “poof!” effect. While she wanted to produce a large quantity, she also wanted distinctive pieces that resonated with the individual tastes and preferences of her clientele across the globe. To achieve this, Laurie explains that with “the collection we made, we made 60 pieces per style and when I make a collection, I can go up to 50 styles in one collection, so 50 styles in 60 pieces each, it is 3000.” Since the collection is stocked in different countries, the different styles are distributed evenly across shops in different sizes. Laurie explains how she distributes:

I am thinking, you are selling in your own shop in Ghana, you are going to be selling in Abidjan, you are going to be selling in Lagos, selling in Bamako, in Dakar, in Paris, in Switzerland, let us say you are selling in 10 places, you have to give to each shop, at least 50 pieces or even 40… I am doing small, medium, large, extra-large sizes….I give about 10 of each size in a shop.”

To achieve exclusivity in limited-edition production, there are some designers who combine socially valued cloth with less socially valued fabrics such as combining Aso ke with lace or Kente with wax print such as done by Zena, Laurie and Eji. Majority of the designers use wax print fabric only or combine it with either lace or material but design them flamboyantly to attain a high-end fashion standard. Making unique designs require little tweaking of styles such as making different sleeve styles, necklines, application of different applique and accessories. Most participants admit that you cannot make each piece unique with a large collection. Laurie explains that in stocking the different shops, “I give you at least three sizes over the four and then maybe two each [styles].” Thus, in one store, she stocks two pieces of one design across the four sizes she produces, making eight pieces of one design. Therefore, in stocking 40–50 pieces per store, she gets to stock about five or six designs out of the 50 created in one store. The reason why bespoke production remains the biggest system of fashion production in Africa is because of the individuality factor. Participants of the study in Nigeria and Ghana agree that the European and American standard measurement for ready-to-wear clothes do not apply to the African body. An African woman can wear a size 10 (UK) for a shirt and size 14 (UK) for a skirt or pair of trousers. Every designer interviewed struggled with measurement at the beginning of their business. As time went on, most designers developed their standard measurement which does not necessarily follow any international measurement convention. They did so through years of sewing bespoke alongside the ready-to-wear line. There are others who started off as bespoke producers before venturing into ready-to wear line. This helped them understand the physique of the African body, and to develop personal measurement charts. So, for a Nigerian designer like Babs her “own clothing line is for the African woman who is a size 8 but still has hips, boobs, you know we are curvy, so our pattern is tailored towards that.” Besides the measurement, most designers are also minded to project personality through their pieces. Some do this through the perceived target market they cater to such as corporate women, religious leaders, businesswomen and businessmen. A Ghanaian designer like Naa, projects her personality through the clothes she makes. As she puts it, she makes something “Naa would like to wear.” According to her, before she produces her collection, she makes a few pieces for herself based on her preferred style within the prevailing trend to test the market. The styles that get most compliments become her collection.

I term this West African limited-edition production model as customized prèt-a-porter. Customized prèt-a-porter is a combination of bespoke and mass production and reflects a designer’s ability to make pieces that reflect individual style, uniqueness, and socio-economic class. This system of production also has implications for sustainable fashion. The limitation that the limited-edition production places on volume of production prevents surplus production that creates waste in the environment. Unlike fast fashion where emphasis is on large volume production to satisfy “the artificially raised consumer appetite… and demand for new trend-lead, cheap designs” (Blazquez et al. 2020, 36), the limited-edition permits the production of a few personalized pieces for each production line. These pieces are efficiently consumed, leaving no or few surpluses. Some designers shared that sometimes there can be pieces that do not get sold, however, majority of their collection normally get sold. There are others who have never experienced retained stock after a season. In cases of stock after seasonal sales, designers conduct sales from 30% to 70% just as most Western fashion brands to get them sold. However, the difference is that the clothes sold on sales by West African designers are very few and get completely sold during sales. Therefore, designers do not dispose their clothes as second-hand pieces. Neither do they send them directly to the landfill.

One concern about the unsustainability of Western fashion is the emphasis on quantitative production over qualitative production. According to Clark (2008), the “just in time” manufacturing of fast fashion that enables faster turnover greatly impacts the creativity of designers and lowers the quality of work. Johansson (2010, 21) corroborates this fact and argues that “there is high pressure and simply no time for designers to be creative which have resulted in a homogenized fashion.” The rush system and decline in creativity has created a void in an industry that thrives on creativity and innovation. Fashion from Africa fills that void. Fashion designers from Africa who have risen to global fame have done so largely on the creativity and innovativeness of their work (Azieb Pool 2016). Laurie who develops 50 designs in 60 pieces to make a collection of 3000 pieces is one such example of talent and creativity. The development of such a collection is a slow, conscious process that requires high skill and creative talent. One cannot apply a short-lead time, bi-weekly turnover, homogenous design production to limited-edition strategy. Akua, a female Ghanaian designer explains that she starts preparing for a collection 3 months prior to the intended period. Developing a collection theme, design concept, sourcing for fabric and accessories before making the pieces takes a lot of time, thinking and creativity. To make an Easter season collection (normally between March and April, which is one of the peak sales seasons in Ghana) she starts preparing in January. She repeats the same process for her Christmas collection in December (the second peak sales period), starting in that case in September. Due to the time and skills involved in production, designers cannot produce a bi-weekly collection as it pertains in the West. Teye, a male designer shared that, to develop a collection, it takes him months to identity the theme within his context. After identifying the theme, he develops it into fabric and design. Sometimes, he produces his own fabric with the theme as a design for his collection. He will then develop design concepts for varied styles based on the collection’s theme. He admits that this process is time consuming, but it offers his customers exclusivity and uniqueness. Normally, Teye produces one collection a year.

Though most of the designers interviewed have a large Western based clientele (mostly Africans in the diaspora), they do not produce as frequently as western brands. Majority of designers interviewed produce two collections a year and Lawd, a male designer, is one of them. While he terms his collections as the Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter collections (the traditional Western seasons), these collections run on both Western and West African markets. The Spring/Summer collection coincides with the Easter season, while the Autumn/Winter collection coincides with the Christmas season in Nigeria and Ghana. Instead of creating different collections for the two market, he runs the same collection concurrently. The two collections have approximately a 6-month sale period, long enough to get the collection sold out. Laurie explains that her 3000 pieces collection are released in tranches of 3 months, over a year. According to her, the 50 pieces she stocks per shop get sold out by 3 months, then she restocks with another 50 of different designs for the next 3 months. That means, she divides the 3000 pieces into four and releases a quarter every 3 months.

Besides the demand in time and creativity to produce a collection that slows down the number of products, fashion seasons last longer in Africa than the global North. On the one hand, the almost homogeneous weather in West Africa does not require a change of wardrobe within the year. The same clothes can be worn in both the rainy and the dry seasons. On the other hand, consumers keep locally produced clothes longer than foreign clothes. The exclusivity, uniqueness and individuality locally produced clothes offer, creates personal attachment with the clothes. Consumers form ab emotional bond with their clothes, therefore, disposing of them is difficult. Zena recounts how she recently wore a dress she made 5 years ago. Likewise, her customers keep their clothes for a long time due to the personal attachment they have with clothes. Sam, a male designer also notes that, most of his customers keep clothes for “about 3 or 4 or 5 years.” This is because, whenever they wear them, the customer stands out because they are unique to the individual. As much as designers would want to make regular sales from customers, they take pride in knowing customers keep their clothes for long periods. It validates their craft and their ability to create timeless pieces. Clark (2008, 440) argues that products are deemed as sustainable fashion “when the product is an investment, has functional longevity, and also remains “in fashion,” it retains its attraction for the particular consumer or user beyond the fashion season.” West African designers invest time, talent, and creativity into producing functional pieces with a long-life span that transcend fashion seasons, thus ultimately producing sustainable fashion. Designers’ commitment to producing sustainable fashion is not limited to just producing clothes but goes further to include the maintenance of clothes.

Brooks et al. (2017) argue that the period of Anthropocene started with the industrial revolution where mechanization of human activities, especially the mechanization of laundry services was introduced, and soap became an essential aspect of laundry. Anthropocene is a geoscientific word that denotes the period when scientists recognized the harmful effect of human activities on nature (Arias-Maldonado 2020). The mechanization of laundry services shifted laundry from manual to mechanical power, highly powered by fossil fuel which emits high levels of carbon dioxide. As Johansson (2010, 39) has pointed out, it is “in the use of the garment that most of the carbon footprint is made during washing, ironing and tumble-drying.” Though soap was introduced quite late, “by the latter half of the nineteenth century nearly all laundry workers used soap…further reproducing social and cultural expectations for clothing and cleanliness (Brooks et al. 2017, 489). Additionally, as heat, detergent and water dissolve stains, they weaken textiles (Brooks et al. 2017, 489). Thus, the need to adopt a different method of caring for clothes that is sustainable. Although washing machines are now readily available on West African markets, designers interviewed in this study do not subscribe to the use of these machines to launder the clothes they produce. They note that, to ensure the longevity of the clothes, it is important to use less harsh chemicals, add natural preservatives to protect the dyes of the fabric and reduce the frequency of washing. Some designers provide instructions on the maintenance of the clothes they make. Sam for example says of his clients, he would not want them to “bastardise[sic] the shirt… you don’t want someone who will wear it and abuse it, wash it with harsh detergent, you have to treat it well.”

This concern is derived from the appreciation of the fabrics they use for the clothes they make. As has been discussed earlier, designers mostly use locally woven fabric or appropriated fabric for their clothes. The locally woven fabrics in particular are significant cultural symbols. Therefore, taking appropriate care of them have both commercial and cultural significance. The method for laundering clothes is a cultural construct which predates the introduction of washing machines. Sam explains that in washing locally produced clothes, one must mix water with salt, soak the clothes in it for a few hours. One can then decide to handwash it without soap or use just a little soap for the neck and armpit. He emphasizes that it is important to handwash not use powdered detergents to wash. This preserves the strength of the fabrics and prevent the dyes from dissolving. Sam states that most fabrics are “guaranteed to fade” but this method keeps it longer and protects the environment from dye pollution. Regarding the frequency of washing, Sam further explains that these fabrics do not require frequent washing, even in the hot West African climate. After wearing the clothes, they are to be hanged in an open space where they are exposed to the sun and air. The aeration will absorb the sweat, making it smell fresh without necessarily washing the clothes. Though the designers did not mention the number of times needed to repeat the aeration process before washing, Sam shared the testimony of an ambassador friend who is also his customer. He recounts that:

that since he [ambassador] started wearing my clothing, expenditure for laundry has come down… when he wears a foreign shirt, he can only wear it once, so, if within a week he wears five shirts, they must all go to the laundry. When he wears African print, he can wear them twice or sometimes three times [before washing].

Aside the savings the customer makes from infrequent laundering, the reduced frequency of washing preserves the quality of the clothes and protects the environment from frequent emission of carbon dioxide. While this method of caring for locally produced clothes works within the West African context, participants could not confirm if their Western based customers follow through the instructions since machine wash is the predominant method of washing in the West.

The production and care of clothes in West Africa is deeply rooted in the socio-cultural construct of fashion consumption which contributes to sustainable fashion. In as much as contemporary fashion designers are adopting Western strategies to scale up production and serve wider markets (Bobie 2022), they continue to be guided by local milieus that do not only give them a competitive edge locally and globally but also contributes to protecting the environment from waste created through surplus production, dye pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. The works of Nigerian and Ghanaian designers attest to the display of creative talents and innovative skills that drives trends and designs in the fashion industry.

Discussion

Sustainable fashion is a great concern in fashion discourse and practice. The environmental, social, and artistic degradation caused by contemporary fashion have called into question the fast fashion production strategy of Western fashion brands. The large volumes of production that creates surplus and subsequent waste as well as the frequency of production that stifles creativity have been criticized as unsustainable in an industry that thrives on creativity and innovation. The discourse on sustainable fashion has centered mainly on the Western and Asian fashion industries. Africa is centered in these discussions only as the dumping ground for the tonnes of disposable clothes produced by fast fashion brands (Johansson 2010; Hansen 2014). The existing literature fails to capture how the local production of clothes contributes to the sustainable fashion discourse. Fashion from Africa has attained prominence due to the creativity and innovativeness of contemporary designers. While the designers’ skills, talents and creativity are widely appreciated, very little is known about how the production strategy they use contributes to sustainable fashion. Furthermore, the discourse on sustainable fashion has ignored socio-cultural factors that give rise to consumption practices which aid in the creation of a sustainable fashion industry. This paper seeks to address this dual lacuna in the literature.

While Langevang (2017) focuses on the economic, social and political challenges that limit production and efficiency in the West African fashion industry (Langevang 2017), many of the designers in this study turned these challenges on its head arguing that while the milieu of exclusivity, uniqueness and individuality limits the possibilities of scaling up production, it in effect endorses sustainable fashion practices. The factors that shape fashion consumption in West Africa include the need to produce clothes that assert social and economic status, the ability to make designs that are unique and not easily replicated and third the ability to project the individual personality of each client in the clothes that are made for them. While these tenets of fashion consumption can easily be met through bespoke production, applying them in ready-to-wear production is challenging. However, contemporary designers have adopted a strategy of production I term as customized prèt-a-porter, a limited-edition production of ready-to-wear clothes that considers these socio-cultural consumption factors while expanding their production to serve a wider market. Customized prèt-a-porter is a combination of bespoke and mass production. Designers use either high valued fabrics or expensive accessories to make exclusive clothes. In a collection, varied designs are created as a framework for different styles for a limited number of pieces. Designers project individual personality through an intimate knowledge of the target market and by developing personal measurement schemes that fit the African physique.

Customized prèt-a-porter production limits volume production to avoid surplus and waste. Since clothes are personalized and in limited quantities, they are efficiently consumed within the production season. The creativity and innovation involved in creating these pieces demand a long production lead-time and as a result designers are not able to produce as frequently as their Western counterparts. West African designers offer a much wider variety of creative and innovative designs compared to the homogenized designs of fast fashion brands. Designers from West Africa invest time in creating different innovative designs in one collection. Thus, instead of bi-weekly production of different designs as done by Western brands, most West African brands produce two collections in a year. In effect, one collection runs for 6 months. Collections are produced to coincide with local and foreign fashion seasons. While the time invested is evident in the creativity of the pieces produced, it also provides long periods for the sale of each collection. Thus, hardly do designers have a pile of unsold clothes. The incorporation of socio-cultural perspectives of consumption in the production process leads to personalized pieces which creates an emotional bond between the clothes and the wearers. The clothes become part of the consumer, making it difficult to dispose of easily, thus, extending the shelf life of the product.

The traditional method of maintaining and laundering clothes produced locally also protects the environment from the negative impact of laundering. There is a long-standing method of caring for locally produced clothes and in as much as there has been technological advancement in laundering, designers insist that the old method of hand washing is the best. Designers instruct their customers on how to maintain the clothes through aeration and hand washing. This method reduces the frequency of washing, protecting the environment from high emissions of carbon dioxide and pollution of dyes.

The longevity and exclusivity of the clothes produced can be a great alternative to imported second-hand clothing. The clothing market in West Africa lacks well-structured locally produced second-hand clothing trade system where people can resell their old clothes at cheaper prices in open retail shops. There is the need to explore the possibility because such a system will ensure even distribution of quality clothes among people with different socio-economic backgrounds. There will be the local movement of limited volume of clothes that provide customers with durable and unique pieces, thus, protecting the environment from the influx of waste clothing associated with imported second-hand clothes.

Conclusion

This paper has shown that in the discourse on the negative impact of fashion production and sustainable fashion, contextual socio-cultural factors are important. The West African situation shows that there are proactive means of addressing sustainable fashion at the local level which when harnessed can have greater impact than the reactive solutions being propagated. Recycling or upcycling are all reactive solutions to problems created by fast fashion, while customized prèt-a-porter production is a proactive way of addressing unsustainable fashion practices.

Ethical approval

The PhD dissertation research was approved by the University of Basel Ethics Committee, while the Advancing Creative Industries for Development project was approved by the University of Ghana Ethics Committee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research in Lagos, Nigeria was part of the author’s PhD dissertation research. She obtained full scholarship for tuition and research from Foundation Oumou Dilly of University of Basel, Switzerland. The research in Ghana is part of the Advancing Creative Industry for Development in Ghana (ACIG) Project, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark, grant number 18-05-CBS.

Notes on contributors

Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie

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Adwoa Owusuaa Bobie is a research fellow at the Centre for Cultural and African Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. She holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Her research interest is in fashion in Africa, the creative industry, gender studies, and development studies.

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