Skito Coast: Best Dressed on a Budget

It's always interesting to see what people are wearing, particularly in the villages. Locally produced apparel is of two types: specific lengths of fabric wrapped and draped for ceremonial occasions;

and skirts, drawstring trousers, and tunics in local patterns, most of which have been "stolen" by Chinese textile manufacturers who print and import the fabrics, undercutting local textile makers.

Nearly all non-Ghanaian apparel outside the cities comes from bulk wholesale purchases from charities in North America

and Europe. That means people have to sort through whatever is left after the charity selects the best stuff for their own thrift shops. And the people in villages have even slimmer choices because the people closest to the markets (in cities and larger towns) get there first when huge bales of clothes arrive on market day. These clothes often have broken zippers, missing buttons, or other imperfections, stains, or holes, and are often

several sizes too big (consider beefy American sizes vs. living-off-the-land Africans) but they are cheap and readily available.

There are loads of polo shirts and t-shirts as well as skirts, pants, shorts, sweats, and jeans. You do see more men and children wearing this clothing than women. Particularly in the villages, women tend to wear locally made clothes and wrap-around

fabrics with perhaps a t-shirt from the used bin. These are some shots of people in our neighborhood and in some of the villages we visit. They are a combination of local and bulk-used everyday apparel. I'll work on getting some shots of people in their Sunday best so you can see the difference. For now, enjoy these...