Ghanaian designer turns discarded clothes from the West into high fashion

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00 These clothes may be part of Ghanaian fashion designer David Boydoh's new collection,

00:06 but they were made using old clothes discarded by the West.

00:10 So as you can see, these are made from 100% pieces that people in Europe and America don't want and have thrown it away.

00:18 And they throw it to Africa and that's why we pick them and make them in good use.

00:24 David regularly goes to second-hand markets like this one to find materials for his creations.

00:30 But with fast fashion on the rise, the quantity and quality of the items he finds here is dropping.

00:37 The quality keeps going down. Brands want to make money. They are not concerned about the quality.

00:43 So from here, where is it going? It's going to the landfill. It's going to the sea.

00:47 Local environmentalist organisations have long been calling for brands to pay for the massive textile waste they create.

00:55 We're just trying to get a database for brands that are responsible

01:02 because then it seems like no brand wants to be blamed for this mess

01:06 and they will claim we are not part of this, our clothes don't go this far.

01:11 We need to show them proof that yes, H&M, Adidas, Nike, Mark and Spencer, you are causing harm to Ghana.

01:20 Each week, around 15 million items of used clothes arrive in Ghana from Western countries,

01:26 with about 40% of them ending up as waste.

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