ACCRA, Dec 28 (Reuters) – As the sun set on a container yard in Ghana’s capital Accra, young men and women in Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead and tie-dye tees traded surplus army jackets and Adidas sneakers while a live deejay classic Afrobeat.
The Vintage Gala, as 23-year-old founders Prince Quist and James Edem Doe Dartey named it, has brought together a movement of young vintage lovers who oppose the global fast-fashion industry by encouraging their peers to shop second-hand.
“If you wear clothes that were made in the past…you’re helping the environment by not using the raw materials and other things that are needed to make new ones,” Quist said, sitting in front of his and Dartey’s booth. online store, TT Vintage Store.
“The idea is just to inspire everyone to save vintage, because second-hand items are not second-rate stuff,” added Dartey. “Vintage shopping makes recycling even better.”
Ghana receives about 15 million used clothes every week from Western countries and China, which are unloaded in bulk, often at negligible prices and of questionable quality. About 40% of this eventually ends up in massive urban landfills, according to the US-based Or Foundation.
Much of it passes through Accra’s Kantamanto, one of the continent’s largest clothing markets, where bales of second-hand clothes are sold based on the expected quality of the garments wrapped inside.
Hours before sunrise several times a week, vintage enthusiasts like Quist and Dartey comb Kantamanto’s rivers of imported clothes, looking for gems they can resell on Instagram pages with thousands of followers in Ghana and abroad.
They believe that buying second-hand not only helps reduce fashion’s environmental impact, but also allows them and their customers to express unique styles in addition to current trends.
Their message is simple: buy used, make a difference.
“Dispel the idea that you only wear vintage when you’re poor or you only wear cheap stuff when you don’t have money,” creative Myra Davis said outside the Vintage Gala event.
“It’s been here for years,” he said. “Why go and produce more when you have more than enough available?”
Reporting by Francis Kokoroko and Cooper Inveen Editing by Peter Graff
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