Ghanaian Cultural Values and their Foreign Influence: A Spotlight on Clothing

Clothing is an area of great interest to mankind due to its ties with the cultural values of a people. Unfortunately, the current Ghanaian clothing and dressing styles do not reflect the traditional Ghanaian cultural values accepted by the people. The purpose of the study was to investigate the Ghanaian cultural values in clothing as well as the impact of foreign fashion styles and dressing on it. The study adopted the qualitative research approach that employs the descriptive research method with open-ended questionnaire and observation as the data collection instruments. The purposive sampling technique was used to select fifty five students from marketing, accounting and fashion departments of the Ho Technical University. The data garnered were analyzed using a mixture of descriptive and nonparametric inferential statistics. The findings from the study revealed that the traditional Ghanaian cloths such as Adinkra, Kente, Slit and Kaba as well as Fugu (Smock), promotes Ghanaian cultural values. However, Western fashion and dressing styles copied from foreign magazines and television programs have influenced the patronage of these traditional Ghanaian clothing styles. These Western clothing and dressing styles patronized by
the Ghanaian youth in the tertiary institutions have had negative impacts on their moral lives leading to a high rise in moral decadence. The study recommends that the Ghanaian cultural ethics in clothing must be encouraged in schools, churches and other social platforms or gatherings. Also, the government must regulate the importation of foreign second hand clothes, foreign fashion magazines as well as airing foreign television programs that negatively promote Western clothing styles and lower the patronage of the Ghanaian clothing which are carriers of the rich Ghanaian cultural values.