This World s11e05 Episode Script
The Secret Life Of Your Clothes
1 Every day we give thousands of bags of our old clothes away to charity shops, and I'm on a journey to find out what happens to it all.
It's like being at the January sales, it's incredible! Oh, no, I've got move! It's non-stop, there's another truck.
Most of us think it's put on racks in charity shops and sold, but loads of it actually ends up thousands of miles away here in Africa.
- It's good stuff? - It's the best quality.
Ralph Lauren, wow.
Even though we give away our second-hand clothes for free, some of the world's poorest people pay good money for them.
And they can't get them quick enough.
But with cheap Western clothes flooding the market, the local clothing industry has been decimated.
From the olden days, this place has been a dumping ground.
When are we going to stop it? It is killing our culture.
You might have forgotten about them, but your old cast-offs have a secret life.
July 14th, 2014 In Britain we spend 60 billion pounds on new clothes every year.
Disposable fashion, made by cheap foreign labour, costs less than ever, and we're buying more and more of it.
I know I've got too many clothes, but as the fashions change each month so does my wardrobe, and I make space for the new stuff by giving my old things away to charity.
I always thought that those clothes were sold in the charity shops.
But I was wrong, in fact charity shops can only sell a fraction of what's been donated.
Most of our unwanted clothes actually get sold to recycling businesses, like this one in the Midlands.
- Hello, how are you? - Very good.
- I'm Paul Robinson.
How you doing? - I'm Ade.
What is going on here? This has just come back from a charity shop, Salvation Army, RSPCA.
This is all what they can't sell in the shop, we buy it off them.
Businesses like Paul's pay around 500 pounds per tonne to buy their donated clothes.
That money goes to the charities we want to support.
And this is all the stuff that we give away.
- Yes.
Unbelievable isn't it? - It is unbelievable.
And that's every day, five days a week.
These are all handbags.
My girlfriend's got a pair of shoes like this.
Look at that.
There's nothing wrong with them.
No.
Probably out of fashion, I don't know.
They obviously couldn't sell it in the shop, that's why we've got it.
That's from Salvation Army.
I never ever thought about it, it didn't cross my mind, what do they do with the stuff that they don't sell.
- I just thought they just sold everything.
- No.
Wholesalers like this are just the first stage in a journey that can take our clothes thousands of miles.
So when I'm driving down the motorway and I see one of these big trucks, you know the last thing I'd think in my mind is that it would be full of clothes.
All these clothes are going abroad, and there's one country that imports more of our old cast-offs than any other.
Ghana is the name we wish to proclaim we will be jolly, merry and gay the 6th of March, Independence Day Every year 30,000 tonnes of used clothing from Britain arrives here, in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
the national flag is a lovely scene with beautiful colours, red, gold and green Everywhere as far as the eye can see is bales of clothes.
Oh, my word! That shirt that you gave away last week, or those trousers or those unwanted shoes, have ended up here.
The wholesale market here is dominated by Ghana's biggest importers.
They do deals with British traders like Paul to ship thousands of bales into the country every three days.
And in Ghana you have a special name for the second-hand clothes? - I keep hearing people saying, erm - Obroni wawu.
What does, obroni wawu, what does it mean? Like white man's dead clothes, no? Obroni wawu.
Eric Forson is one of Ghana's new breed of wholesalers, feeding a huge demand for dead white man's clothes.
So why do people in Ghana love obroni wawu so much? I mean, all of this madness that's going on here Concentrates on obroni wawu.
is because of obroni wawu.
What's this all about? OK, it depends on what a person wants to buy, but obroni wawu goes faster because it's a little bit cheaper for the masses to afford.
Like having 50 Ghanaian in pocket, you go to the market and buy a lot of shirts, but when you go to the shop you buy only one or two shirts, whereby I prefer to go to the market and buy the used ones.
So all of the stuff you get is from the UK? The United Kingdom, yes.
We used to get some from Manchester, sometime we go to Leeds, sometimes we go to Coventry.
This is UK from Birmingham.
- Birmingham? - Birmingham.
So why do you choose to get your stuff from the UK in particular? In terms of second-hand clothing, the UK stuffs are best and they mainly imported more than the other stuffs.
- So what about yourself, are you wearing obroni wawu? - Yes.
- All of this? - I do, yeah.
- What's the make of your shirt? - It's Marks & Spencer Marks & Spencer shirt, and your trousers? - Calvin Klein.
- That is an interesting combination, because in the UK I couldn't imagine seeing someone wearing Calvin Klein trousers with Marks & Spencer shirt, no disrespect.
But it happens like that sometimes.
The clothes that we give away may be of no value to us any more, but here they've created a whole new economy.
On a good day, your best day of buying these bales, how much money did you make? 100,000 Ghana cedis? Which is about 25,000 pounds? - In one day? - Yes.
I can't believe the figures that are involved in second-hand clothes, and he's probably one of thousands of traders all over this country that's making money out of the clothes that we don't want to use.
Asiedu is the next link in the chain.
He comes to the market to buy clothes on the day new bales arrive.
Asiedu selects the best clothes to sell in his designer boutique.
What's the best item of clothing you've found? And Paul Boateng is a high, high label, and you found that? Yes.
So many, many shirts.
This one Ben Sherman.
It's funny to be so far away from the UK and to see Ben Sherman.
- You prefer the UK? - Yeah.
Why do you prefer UK? - OK, so you like the slim fitting? - The slim, slim fit.
So if you eat too much pounded yam then you wear USA? - Yes, but we don't like it! - OK, I understand.
For reasons of hygiene, selling used underwear is banned in Ghana.
But the rules don't seem to have had much effect.
These are boxer shorts, are they second hand? All the clothes are divided into first, second and third class items.
The customers for Asiedu's top-end designer gear are mostly Accra's hip young urbanites who've got money to spend.
Because almost everybody in Ghana wears obroni wawu, even better off people.
- Marks & Spencer.
Blue Harbour - And this? - First class.
- This is first class? Yeah.
We use the name for the first class.
So the label and the name makes it first class.
Poorer Ghanaians buy the second and third class clothes, which are older or damaged.
Can you show me a second class T-shirt then? So this is second class because of the arm.
This is really, really interesting.
Now this is George, I think that's a make from ASDA.
It was in Mind for 5 pounds.
- And is there 3rd class then? - We have 3rd class.
This is 3rd class? I don't know price.
Price would go low.
This is low.
And what about myself? Is this first class? Be careful! No idea, no idea.
No idea! The cheek of it! I'm going, man.
Man's just laughing at my clothes.
The second-hand clothes trade in Ghana is worth 50 million pounds a year, and Accra is only the first stop on the journey of our old cast-offs.
To find out what happens next, I needed to head north.
One, two, three! A lot of the clothes that I saw being bought and sold in Accra market get moved on to other places around the country, and one of the main cities that they end up in is Kumasi.
I was heading into Ghana's Ashanti region, one of the most famous ancient kingdoms of Africa.
Its power was built on trading gold which is still mined in the area today, and is why this part of Africa is known as the Gold Coast.
The commercial heart of this area is Kumasi, home to West Africa's biggest market.
This is where I caught up with the bales of clothes that had been driven up from Accra.
Trucks everywhere! And there's even more round the corner here.
It's a never-ending supply of trucks.
If you didn't know it you'd think a precious supply of gold had arrived, not our second-hand clothes.
There are hundreds of wholesalers in Kumasi, who buy bales of clothes directly from the big importers in the capital.
- So you buy the stuff from Accra? - Yes.
Do you go to Accra? And how much stuff do you buy? Bales? The wholesalers here sell the clothes on to smaller traders who buy a few bales each to take to market.
Each bale can cost up to 40 pounds, and these women are supposed to buy them sight unseen, so they're taking a big risk every time they buy.
They'll only make a profit if the clothes they end up with are clean and in good condition, so tensions often spill over.
There's an argument over the bales.
This lady has ordered one type of bale, but she feels she's received the wrong type of bale.
I expected that to happen because just look at this place, look at it.
This to me is business in the rawest sense.
What's the problem? So what's the matter with the stuff? Investing your money in these bales is a gamble for a lot of these people because they don't know what's in there.
You know, you could get a top quality pair of pants, you could get high fashionable jeans or you could get a load of rubbish.
So it's a massive risk, so to me I suppose that's the reason why the emotions run so high.
The scale of the trade is truly staggering, and I wanted to understand the impact it is having on Ghana.
So the next morning I took a deep breath and headed into Kumasi market, probably the world's biggest hub for second-hand clothes.
The great thing about this place is it's so vibrant, even at this time in the morning there's always something going on.
More than half of all the clothes bought in Ghana are cast-offs from Europe and America.
And across Africa, second-hand garments have literally flooded the market.
There's second-hand shoes everywhere, and I guarantee if at any point in your life you've given away second-hand clothes to a charity shop or anywhere, it's probably come through this market.
These sellers are trading straight off the side of the pavement, running what are known locally as "Bend down boutiques.
" - Do you sell these shoes? - Yes.
Where did you get the shoes from? This is all from Britain? How do you find the pairs? I see one trainer, this is the right foot, where's the other one? Oh, so this is your security system? So if you lay them all out and you don't lay them - in pairs no-one can steal, unless they have odd shoes.
- Yeah.
So if you see someone walking with odd shoes that means they've - stolen your trainers.
- Yes.
Visiting an African market is an experience in itself cos when you look around you see what's going, there's a vibrancy and you can buy absolutely anything here.
Most of it, if not all of it, is second hand, you know? They haven't got the same hang-ups that we have over second-hand stuff.
Everywhere you look something is being sold or bought, and that's life here in Africa.
Oh, my days! Look at that! As far as the eye can see it's just market stalls and traders.
I'm going in, I'm going in 20 years ago this was a normal market, and second-hand clothes were sold alongside the more traditional West African textiles.
Ghana's well known for its brightly coloured clothes, but the explosion in disposable fashion in the rich world has caused a revolution here.
There are now thousands of stalls selling our old cast-offs, swamping the traditional African garments.
So tight in here! Recycled clothes have taken over from local dress, even on some of life's most traditional occasions.
Hello, what have you got here? What are these? This one is wedding dress.
Wedding dress.
So these are second-hand wedding dresses? - Yes.
- Can we have a look? Second-hand wedding dress.
That's beautiful.
And do people in Ghana, do they love buying the second-hand - wedding dresses? - Yes.
- So at a Ghanaian wedding they would wear one of these dresses? - Yes.
How much would one of these cost? This cost 50 Ghana cedis.
So that's like 10 to 15 pounds for one of these dresses.
This is like the boutique end of the market, you know.
You know, it's like the equivalent of Bond Street.
You can see some of the shops are slightly more marbled and more expensive stuff.
Look at this.
Hello, how you doing? - Good.
- What have you got here? - You've got some big coats here.
- Yeah.
Where are the coats from, which country? - England.
- England? - Yeah.
So who on earth would buy these coats, they're so hot and warm in Ghana? They take to travel.
They take to travel? So these coats are obroni wawu, - they're second-hand, they come from Europe.
- Yeah.
- To Ghana? And then back to Europe.
- And then back to Europe again.
Full circle.
- Yeah.
Ha! You even sell goggles.
Yeah, for big machine.
What, for motorbikes? Yeah, like this.
Our old cast-offs are not just sold here-- they've inspired a whole industry.
So what's going on here? Excuse me, sir, could you tell me what you're doing, please? Ironing? This is where our tired old clothes come to get a make-over.
You've got to love this place, there's a guy just over there who's turning trousers into skirts.
You've got this guy here, who's adding dye to jeans, making old, second-hand jeans look brand-new.
You've got this lady, who's making shirts more fitted because they come from North America.
And you've got this guy, who's ironing.
You've got a whole mini factory all based around second-hand clothing.
Every year, the market grows bigger, and now it even sprawls across an old railway yard.
Thank you.
Way! - One cedi.
- One cedi! OK.
1.
5! In this part of the market I found people selling cheaper clothes for just 25 pence! OK, let me do it right.
How do I do it? Like that? - And then like that.
- Yes! That's the African way.
Even when clothes are this cheap there's still a pecking order.
When we came here we heard people selling stuff for one cedi, two cedis, but your stuff is selling for four cedis, what's the difference between your stuff and their stuff? Many of Florence's customers have travelled miles to buy clothes they can then take back to their villages to sell on.
Florence, is it always like this when you open a bale, is it this chaotic all the time? The women here can remember a time when West African markets weren't dominated by used clothes.
Why don't you buy Ghanaian clothes? Why are you only buying second-hand European clothes? So if you had money, would you buy traditional Ghanaian clothes or would you buy second-hand European clothes? I was born in nearby Nigeria, and I remember my family wearing brightly coloured West African fabrics.
Now everybody's wearing Western cast-offs and I couldn't help wondering, what had happened to all those traditional clothes? So I headed into the countryside in search of a more African kind of clothing.
Going to need skills to get across here.
Which I obviously have! This is Kente cloth.
Traditionally it's only worn on special occasions by state officials and royal families.
Wearing a piece of cloth makes you more gorgeous-- like a king! Osei-Bonsu is a local historian who has studied the traditions of Kente.
To be able to do this, one has to undergo training, a year or more, to learn how to weave the very simple Kente.
And how long would it take to make something like this? Because it looks so intricate.
Well, this will take you about four months to weave.
- Four months?! - Yes, four months.
- Why so long? I know it's intricate, but why? Very intricate.
Each piece of cloth has its own name and symbolises a particular event or proverb.
There were times that we could not read and write and so we were keeping our history in the clothes that we wear.
So the cloth speaks volumes.
History, philosophy and literature-- everything.
In Ghana now, I see more people wearing obroni wawu, or second-hand clothes, you know, than ever.
So are traditional prints still as popular-- not just Kente, but the traditional clothing? Economics come into play, second-hand clothing brought in from Europe and America, it's cheaper, far cheaper.
And what kind of impact do you think that's having to the culture in Ghana? Because everybody seems to be dressed more like the West, like Westerners rather than Africans.
Well, we were trained, even when I was young, to believe that everything West is civilisation.
Our belief and respect for our own things has faded to a degree that, if we are not very careful, sometime, somewhere, someday, we would have to We would not see some of our own things any more.
I'm quite frustrated, because Africa has a rich history and a lot of people travel to Africa to see that.
And being someone who was born in Nigeria, I'm proud of that past.
These days everybody is keeping an English name or a Western name, in addition to his own name.
And they prefer being called the Western names to being called their local names.
That alone should tell you.
The food that we eat has changed.
We're eating more Western food than our own food.
It is killing our culture.
If there's no obroni wawu a lot of people would turn to the local type of dress.
But there is more at stake here than just traditions and culture.
Ghana used to have its own thriving textile industry making the famous printed, colour fabrics.
Factories employed more than 25,000 people, but today most of the textile companies have closed and the jobs have gone.
I headed east towards Lake Volta to meet some of the people still working in the industry.
I'm off to one of Ghana's last remaining factories that produces traditional cloth.
Akosombo Textiles is the last business in the country that still takes in raw cotton at one end to produce its finished fabrics out the other.
Steve Dutton is from Manchester and he's worked in textiles all his life.
He relocated to Africa 20 years ago to help manage a flourishing company that once employed 2,000 workers in this factory.
In 2009 we were producing getting on for 2 million metres a month, OK? - And, erm - Was that your peak production, was that? Yeah, that was about our peak.
And today, over that period, it's gone down by about 75%, - so currently - 75%?! - That's right.
It's quite an urgent situation, we feel as though we're right on the brink of not being able to carry on.
And what sort of impact would you say second-hand clothing has had on your industry? It's about usage, so for traditional cultural events people still use African print quite a lot.
But also, I've no doubt that people will use Western-style clothing-- if I can put it that way.
And if they're going to do that, they're going to go to the second-hand clothing market, because it's a whole lot cheaper.
But as well as the challenge from the second-hand clothes, this factory faces another threat.
Their unique Ghanaian designs have also been copied and undercut by cheap fakes from the var East.
What is really the biggest threat to our business and to the jobs is the fakes and the copies.
For example, this one has got a ticket of ATL, Number One, Akosombo Textiles Limited.
We have never produced a ticket like this.
- So that's a fake? - That is a fake.
- That's a Chinese fake? - Absolutely.
And they're cheeky enough to even put on that Yeah, they're using the brand, the logo.
We know it's a fake because of the overall quality.
So how does all of this make you feel? It's difficult for me to overemphasise just how close we are to closing down.
I'm very, very worried that this copying, if it's not challenged, if it's not stopped, if it's not minimised, is going to destroy us.
With poor infrastructure and high costs, African businesses struggle to compete with China's mighty clothing industry.
We survive at the moment basically on our special designs for particular events, but is that enough to keep us going? Honestly, I doubt it.
It really is touch-and-go now.
We are talking to the government here to try and get some assistance.
So, if help is there, we've got a chance.
If it isn't there, I think our days are numbered.
It's really sad that the Ghanaian textile industry is struggling so badly.
And the irony is, the only thing that's keeping this factory alive is death.
The company's last lifeline is making traditional fabrics specially designed for funerals-- which are often huge social events in Ghana.
Funerals are such a big part of the culture here and everywhere you go you see posters and banners of family members inviting people to come to funerals or to commemorate the lives of the person who's passed away.
It's still common here to buy a new outfit for a funeral-- made from the traditional fabrics that were once normal in everyday life.
- Hello.
- Hi.
Sometimes special designs are commissioned by the family of the deceased.
This looks amazing-- it's beautiful! Here's some African OK, this is the style.
So, maybe Wow, that looks cool.
Are these all for funerals? Yeah, you can wear it for a funeral.
I mean, obviously the colour has to be black.
It looks a bit glamorous, though.
That's the one.
Not in pink, though.
I needed an outfit because we'd been allowed to film at the funeral of a local celebrity.
Clothes at Ghanaian funerals are dominated by two colours-- black to symbolise death and red to convey the anger of loss.
You wouldn't know you were coming to a funeral.
It's so glamorous.
Ronnie Coaches was a well-known musician who died tragically young.
Mourners from all walks of life had come to his funeral.
It's like nothing I've ever seen before-- dancing and performing, photographers everywhere.
The atmosphere's incredible.
I've never seen so many smiles and so much happiness at a funeral.
But as Ronnie's coffin was taken for burial, the mood changed.
It's a real roller coaster of emotions when you come to a Ghanaian funeral because one minute everybody's up, the next minute it's really sombre and now they're taking the body off to the graveyard and just heavy emotions.
I feel like this is a real taste of Ghanaian culture-- the colours, the people and the celebration.
After six hours of music, partying and prayers, the 500 mourners who had come to pay their respects arrived at Ronnie's final resting place.
Throughout the day, I'd been struck by the fact that even here at a funeral, there were just as many Western clothes as traditional.
amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen This is the last and final respect we are giving to our son.
At a funeral, you are showing off not only the status of the one who's dead but the status of those who are alive so you don't want to wear the kind of clothing where everybody will brand it that you've been to folk's line to pick.
Professor Irene Odotei writes about popular culture.
She believes that Ghana's traditions are being undermined.
People are beginning to be more dressed up at funerals.
In the olden days it was, like, more sombre, kind of toned down but these days, people wear very long high heels and really, you see this, you can even think they're going to a dinner party.
The idea of dressing in Western dress to funerals, where did that come from? It's globalisation.
People are watching a lot of television, they themselves have not been really brought up to traditional values.
We are losing ground because urbanisation too has come in, a lot of them have come from the villages of wherever they are, where they had these influences, traditional influences, they've come to settle in the cities and in the cities you lose track.
These things with the second-hand clothes, what is it doing to the traditions in Ghana? From the olden days, this place has been a dumping ground for stuff and it continues to be a dumping ground.
When are we going to stop it? The Ghanaian textile industry relies on big occasions like this to make money and to sell clothes and I think, if people aren't going to wear traditional dress at big occasions like this, when are they going to wear it? It was time to get back on the trail of our second-hand clothes and head into the remote north-east of Ghana.
I wanted to meet some of the people in the poorest regions of the country who are wearing our old cast-offs.
In the market at Kumasi, I'd met women from this area buying bales of clothes to take back to their villages.
The women who travel to Kumasi market often go in buses like that one and they're cramped in there like sardines and it can be up to a three-day round trip for them.
By the time the clothes get here, they have been on an almost unbelievable journey.
Many were originally manufactured by poor workers in countries like Bangladesh and shipped thousands of miles to Britain.
After a few months in our wardrobes, they set off via the charity shops on a new journey to Africa.
From the port in Accra, they're driven hundreds of miles via Kumasi market, to this ferry port on the shores of Lake Volta.
On the ferry over to Kete Krachi, I met Osei.
He's one of the biggest local traders of what they call dead white man's clothes.
- Morning.
- Morning.
- How are you? - I'm fine.
So, this bale, is this yours? And where did it come from? So you prefer obroni wawu to the traditional clothing? Why? So it makes you unique? You stand out? Is there an alternative to obroni wawu? Is there anything else that the locals in Krachi or the Ghanaians could wear? Before the obroni wawu stalls arrived here ten years ago, people had to make their clothes last for years.
Clothes that you find here in Kete Krachi-- they've been rejected by everyone all over Ghana.
They're not going to be the ones picked in the capital city, Kumasi and Accra, people are not going to have these clothes and they're a bit more damaged, they're not high-end fashion.
It's like the clothes you'd find in a jumble sale and I can't imagine how many pairs of hands they've been through and we might not want them, but I reckon they're gold dust here.
brand new second hand don't bother show us brand new second hand you're just a nuisance brand new second hand From the ferry port, the clothes travel along dirt roads to the remotest villages.
The final stage of their journey is often on foot.
- Hello, good morning.
- Good morning.
I just want to ask, how do you manage to balance it on your head? It's just, I mean, it's incredible.
Isn't your neck getting tired? Can we see how heavy that is? Can I check the weight on your head? Oh, no! Whoa! Yeah! I don't know how she does this, I really don't.
Dina, you can have it back, there you go! Medase.
It's funny how second-hand clothes, you know, and especially football-- second-hand football stuff-- permeates the whole of this country.
- Chelsea fan? - Yeah.
And you've got Liverpool shorts on.
Judging by the size of them, I think they were worn by Jan Molby.
Dina's a single mum bringing up five children.
She walks up to ten miles from village to village selling clothes.
As we've been walking along, all these people, they know you, they stop and talk to you, are they all your customers? So why are you selling second-hand clothes? So if you weren't selling second-hand clothes, there would be no other way for you to earn money? Many of the villagers here in Gyen Gyen are subsistence farmers living on the equivalent of less than a pound a day.
Can you tell me why you love these clothes? Why you love obroni wawu so much? When you look through these clothes, you see Superdry, Next, Dorothy Perkins I could be on any high street in the UK, but I'm not, we're in a small village in north-eastern Ghana.
As well as selling the clothes, Dina also acts as a personal shopper.
Hey, hey, hey! Hey! Does it look good on him? You going to sell it to him? Even though these clothes cost less than 25p, the villagers here sometimes have to go into debt to buy them.
Dina, would you sell this on credit, so she can take it now and then she pays for it next week? Clothes like this we give away for to charity shops in the UK for free.
Are you surprised by that? Are you going to buy it? Oh, you've got a deal.
Look at that! Do this, do this, do this! Yeah! When I give away my clothes to charity shops in the UK, this is the last place I'd expect them to end up-- in a rural village in north-eastern Ghana.
And what's even more surprising is these people have next to nothing, yet they're probably supporting a lot of UK charities.
And what's even weirder than that is those charities are probably giving money to Africa to support these people, so it's just a bizarre merry-go-round.
It was incredible to see where our old clothes end up and in some ways, they've come full circle.
They're cheap garments made by some of the world's poorest people that end up being worn by some of the world's poorest people.
Affordable clothing has benefitted these villagers and provided some of them with a living.
Across Ghana and Africa, our second-hand clothes drive a vast industry of people, transporting, packing and selling them.
Come on! But I do find it a bit sad how Western clothing has spread across the world.
Go, go, go, go! Oh, nice pass! It worries me how it's affecting the culture because the last thing I would want to see is for everyone in the world to be dressed the same.
You going to play? All right, I'm going to turn around.
All behind me.
That way, that way, that way.
Ohh! The final stage of my journey took me back to the capital, Accra.
Despite the poverty I'd seen in the countryside, Ghana is actually an African success story.
It's one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
There is a clothing industry here as well and I headed to one of its most successful companies.
Sleek Garments employs around 300 workers making a wide range of clothes.
CEO Nora Bannerman has worked in the industry for 30 years and she's experienced its problems first-hand.
There's some unfair competition from imported garments and the worst of it is the used clothing.
I was going to say, what kind of impact has the second-hand clothing market had on your business? You know, for those in the industry who focus mainly on the local markets it's been very challenging and most of them have shut down their factories.
New shirts made in Ghana cost up to 40 times more than our second-hand ones.
So instead of competing, Nora concentrates on making work-wear for local businesses in Ghana.
This is for a mining company, this is a phone company, - these are security uniforms.
- So you make uniforms? - And so on.
We decided to focus on that and then strategise to get back into the market again.
Because of the tough competition, most of the clothes made here are actually exported.
Locally here in Ghana, the markets are pretty small for garments that are of one design, of one colour, of one fabric.
Our focus is on mass-producing clothing, mainly for export to the US and they buy in the thousands.
It's just a huge market.
In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen to the textile industry in Ghana? We need to be in business to create jobs for our people and create the wealth that they need to enable them to afford new garments, freshly made garments and so we need to look at this in totality and bring a change and change is always difficult, but change is always for good.
Imagine what we can do for our economy and once the economy is growing, things will change.
Nora thinks that only higher wages and less poverty will end the domination of second-hand clothes.
You see these young women? They work hard and they should be able to afford new clothing.
Why should they wear clothing that somebody else doesn't want any more? Do you think we'll ever see the day where there will be no longer obroni wawu or second-hand clothes in Ghana? That day will come.
That day will surely come.
It may be slow, but it's coming - and it will definitely come for sure.
- Brilliant.
The government here is also trying to persuade people to wear locally-made clothes.
Ten years ago, they introduced a local dress day.
The idea is that at the end of each week, office workers ditch their suits for more traditional colourful shirts and "Thank Ghana, it's Friday".
It's a desire to be Ghanaian.
It's still a working day so it's not as we are dressing down but we are dressing traditional - and also making the place a fun place to work, isn't it? - Yeah.
The workers in Ellen Hagan's recruitment company have embraced the scheme-- well, at least, most of them have.
I noticed not all of your workers are wearing traditional dress because I can see some people in that office over there.
Ah! Well, actually, she is.
She has combined the Western style with the African print.
So she's just trying to be trendy, you know, these are younger people, so Has traditional clothing become something just for the middle classes, something for people with money? I don't think so.
In everything on the market, there are different ranges or they prefer to wear non-traditional clothes, in which case it is easier to get the suits and the skirts from the obroni wawu rather than get a tailor to make a suit, a skirt suit for you.
Could we have a show of hands, right, if you were going out on a Saturday night to a party and you wanted to impress people, how many of you here would wear traditional clothing? To impress, definitely.
To impress, if it is to impress.
If it is to impress, then traditional clothing.
That's the majority, except for this man! Who's laughing in the corner! Why? Just tell us why would you rather wear Western clothing? We're the younger generation, we like to look more trendy so you see most of the Western clothes, the foreign clothes are more trendy to the younger generation.
So more of the times, you will see them wearing the the Western clothes.
I mean, I wonder if you think, the influence of Western clothing, do you think it's to do with globalisation? You can go on YouTube, the MTV channels and you're seeing designs, you want to mix it, you want to merge it, you don't want to look like you are too Ghanaian - when you are going to an event.
- Why not? Because you want to know that, for us, the youth, mostly it's because you know what's out there.
It's cool to merge the two now.
A couple of years back, it was cool to be only European.
Now it's cooler to be African.
I think Ghana's relationship with clothes is changing.
the younger generation, especially the ones with money, like the people we met today, they're creating their own trends and mixing traditional styles with Western styles and for them, it's all about what looks cool.
If African clothing companies can't compete with our second-hand clothes on price, maybe they can on style.
I went to a catwalk show where I met Ghanaian designers who are trying to appeal to the country's growing middle-class by fusing traditional African prints with high fashion.
Some of them, like Kofi Ansah and Joyce Ababio, have worked or trained in Europe and the US.
Tell me about the state of the fashion industry in Ghana.
We are trying to get the whole process cheaper for us, so that we can go out there and compete.
I'd rather see us being able to use our own fabrics to create, you know, interpret it in any way that we want to, as opposed to obroni wawu.
My dream is to make $10 shirts as opposed to $100 dollar shirts.
I'm training the people and I'm looking for them to become fashion designers, then, you see, I have to look at it from another point-- I want to see them actually be able to develop in the industry and take our clothing or our fabrics to do something instead of second-hand clothing.
Because if there's second-hand clothing out there, what am I doing with my people that I'm training? I want to see them be able to become fashion designers as well.
As the economy grows, the new middle-class should provide a market for these local African-inspired designs.
And I'm sensing a lot of optimism.
Ghana is changing and the hope is that in the future, more and more Ghanaians will be wearing cool clothes designed by Ghanaian designers.
The global trade in second-hand clothes has grown into a billion-pound business.
And it's being fed by our own addiction to cheap, disposable fashion made in the Far East.
Before leaving Ghana, I returned to Accra's wholesale clothes market, where 1 million pounds worth of obroni wawu arrives every week.
Over the years, I've given away lots of my old clothes to charity shops.
I never in my wildest dreams thought it would create something like this.
It feeds so many people, this industry.
At the same time, it has decimated the country's clothing industry and is wiping out some of the traditions that make Africa such a vibrant continent.
It does make me think, you know, do we really need that many clothes? But then on the flip side, I think it's making a lot of people happy over here and it's given a lot of people work, so there's definitely pros and cons but I know I definitely don't need as many clothes as I have.
I don't! I don't need 20 pairs of jeans.
It's like being at the January sales, it's incredible! Oh, no, I've got move! It's non-stop, there's another truck.
Most of us think it's put on racks in charity shops and sold, but loads of it actually ends up thousands of miles away here in Africa.
- It's good stuff? - It's the best quality.
Ralph Lauren, wow.
Even though we give away our second-hand clothes for free, some of the world's poorest people pay good money for them.
And they can't get them quick enough.
But with cheap Western clothes flooding the market, the local clothing industry has been decimated.
From the olden days, this place has been a dumping ground.
When are we going to stop it? It is killing our culture.
You might have forgotten about them, but your old cast-offs have a secret life.
July 14th, 2014 In Britain we spend 60 billion pounds on new clothes every year.
Disposable fashion, made by cheap foreign labour, costs less than ever, and we're buying more and more of it.
I know I've got too many clothes, but as the fashions change each month so does my wardrobe, and I make space for the new stuff by giving my old things away to charity.
I always thought that those clothes were sold in the charity shops.
But I was wrong, in fact charity shops can only sell a fraction of what's been donated.
Most of our unwanted clothes actually get sold to recycling businesses, like this one in the Midlands.
- Hello, how are you? - Very good.
- I'm Paul Robinson.
How you doing? - I'm Ade.
What is going on here? This has just come back from a charity shop, Salvation Army, RSPCA.
This is all what they can't sell in the shop, we buy it off them.
Businesses like Paul's pay around 500 pounds per tonne to buy their donated clothes.
That money goes to the charities we want to support.
And this is all the stuff that we give away.
- Yes.
Unbelievable isn't it? - It is unbelievable.
And that's every day, five days a week.
These are all handbags.
My girlfriend's got a pair of shoes like this.
Look at that.
There's nothing wrong with them.
No.
Probably out of fashion, I don't know.
They obviously couldn't sell it in the shop, that's why we've got it.
That's from Salvation Army.
I never ever thought about it, it didn't cross my mind, what do they do with the stuff that they don't sell.
- I just thought they just sold everything.
- No.
Wholesalers like this are just the first stage in a journey that can take our clothes thousands of miles.
So when I'm driving down the motorway and I see one of these big trucks, you know the last thing I'd think in my mind is that it would be full of clothes.
All these clothes are going abroad, and there's one country that imports more of our old cast-offs than any other.
Ghana is the name we wish to proclaim we will be jolly, merry and gay the 6th of March, Independence Day Every year 30,000 tonnes of used clothing from Britain arrives here, in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
the national flag is a lovely scene with beautiful colours, red, gold and green Everywhere as far as the eye can see is bales of clothes.
Oh, my word! That shirt that you gave away last week, or those trousers or those unwanted shoes, have ended up here.
The wholesale market here is dominated by Ghana's biggest importers.
They do deals with British traders like Paul to ship thousands of bales into the country every three days.
And in Ghana you have a special name for the second-hand clothes? - I keep hearing people saying, erm - Obroni wawu.
What does, obroni wawu, what does it mean? Like white man's dead clothes, no? Obroni wawu.
Eric Forson is one of Ghana's new breed of wholesalers, feeding a huge demand for dead white man's clothes.
So why do people in Ghana love obroni wawu so much? I mean, all of this madness that's going on here Concentrates on obroni wawu.
is because of obroni wawu.
What's this all about? OK, it depends on what a person wants to buy, but obroni wawu goes faster because it's a little bit cheaper for the masses to afford.
Like having 50 Ghanaian in pocket, you go to the market and buy a lot of shirts, but when you go to the shop you buy only one or two shirts, whereby I prefer to go to the market and buy the used ones.
So all of the stuff you get is from the UK? The United Kingdom, yes.
We used to get some from Manchester, sometime we go to Leeds, sometimes we go to Coventry.
This is UK from Birmingham.
- Birmingham? - Birmingham.
So why do you choose to get your stuff from the UK in particular? In terms of second-hand clothing, the UK stuffs are best and they mainly imported more than the other stuffs.
- So what about yourself, are you wearing obroni wawu? - Yes.
- All of this? - I do, yeah.
- What's the make of your shirt? - It's Marks & Spencer Marks & Spencer shirt, and your trousers? - Calvin Klein.
- That is an interesting combination, because in the UK I couldn't imagine seeing someone wearing Calvin Klein trousers with Marks & Spencer shirt, no disrespect.
But it happens like that sometimes.
The clothes that we give away may be of no value to us any more, but here they've created a whole new economy.
On a good day, your best day of buying these bales, how much money did you make? 100,000 Ghana cedis? Which is about 25,000 pounds? - In one day? - Yes.
I can't believe the figures that are involved in second-hand clothes, and he's probably one of thousands of traders all over this country that's making money out of the clothes that we don't want to use.
Asiedu is the next link in the chain.
He comes to the market to buy clothes on the day new bales arrive.
Asiedu selects the best clothes to sell in his designer boutique.
What's the best item of clothing you've found? And Paul Boateng is a high, high label, and you found that? Yes.
So many, many shirts.
This one Ben Sherman.
It's funny to be so far away from the UK and to see Ben Sherman.
- You prefer the UK? - Yeah.
Why do you prefer UK? - OK, so you like the slim fitting? - The slim, slim fit.
So if you eat too much pounded yam then you wear USA? - Yes, but we don't like it! - OK, I understand.
For reasons of hygiene, selling used underwear is banned in Ghana.
But the rules don't seem to have had much effect.
These are boxer shorts, are they second hand? All the clothes are divided into first, second and third class items.
The customers for Asiedu's top-end designer gear are mostly Accra's hip young urbanites who've got money to spend.
Because almost everybody in Ghana wears obroni wawu, even better off people.
- Marks & Spencer.
Blue Harbour - And this? - First class.
- This is first class? Yeah.
We use the name for the first class.
So the label and the name makes it first class.
Poorer Ghanaians buy the second and third class clothes, which are older or damaged.
Can you show me a second class T-shirt then? So this is second class because of the arm.
This is really, really interesting.
Now this is George, I think that's a make from ASDA.
It was in Mind for 5 pounds.
- And is there 3rd class then? - We have 3rd class.
This is 3rd class? I don't know price.
Price would go low.
This is low.
And what about myself? Is this first class? Be careful! No idea, no idea.
No idea! The cheek of it! I'm going, man.
Man's just laughing at my clothes.
The second-hand clothes trade in Ghana is worth 50 million pounds a year, and Accra is only the first stop on the journey of our old cast-offs.
To find out what happens next, I needed to head north.
One, two, three! A lot of the clothes that I saw being bought and sold in Accra market get moved on to other places around the country, and one of the main cities that they end up in is Kumasi.
I was heading into Ghana's Ashanti region, one of the most famous ancient kingdoms of Africa.
Its power was built on trading gold which is still mined in the area today, and is why this part of Africa is known as the Gold Coast.
The commercial heart of this area is Kumasi, home to West Africa's biggest market.
This is where I caught up with the bales of clothes that had been driven up from Accra.
Trucks everywhere! And there's even more round the corner here.
It's a never-ending supply of trucks.
If you didn't know it you'd think a precious supply of gold had arrived, not our second-hand clothes.
There are hundreds of wholesalers in Kumasi, who buy bales of clothes directly from the big importers in the capital.
- So you buy the stuff from Accra? - Yes.
Do you go to Accra? And how much stuff do you buy? Bales? The wholesalers here sell the clothes on to smaller traders who buy a few bales each to take to market.
Each bale can cost up to 40 pounds, and these women are supposed to buy them sight unseen, so they're taking a big risk every time they buy.
They'll only make a profit if the clothes they end up with are clean and in good condition, so tensions often spill over.
There's an argument over the bales.
This lady has ordered one type of bale, but she feels she's received the wrong type of bale.
I expected that to happen because just look at this place, look at it.
This to me is business in the rawest sense.
What's the problem? So what's the matter with the stuff? Investing your money in these bales is a gamble for a lot of these people because they don't know what's in there.
You know, you could get a top quality pair of pants, you could get high fashionable jeans or you could get a load of rubbish.
So it's a massive risk, so to me I suppose that's the reason why the emotions run so high.
The scale of the trade is truly staggering, and I wanted to understand the impact it is having on Ghana.
So the next morning I took a deep breath and headed into Kumasi market, probably the world's biggest hub for second-hand clothes.
The great thing about this place is it's so vibrant, even at this time in the morning there's always something going on.
More than half of all the clothes bought in Ghana are cast-offs from Europe and America.
And across Africa, second-hand garments have literally flooded the market.
There's second-hand shoes everywhere, and I guarantee if at any point in your life you've given away second-hand clothes to a charity shop or anywhere, it's probably come through this market.
These sellers are trading straight off the side of the pavement, running what are known locally as "Bend down boutiques.
" - Do you sell these shoes? - Yes.
Where did you get the shoes from? This is all from Britain? How do you find the pairs? I see one trainer, this is the right foot, where's the other one? Oh, so this is your security system? So if you lay them all out and you don't lay them - in pairs no-one can steal, unless they have odd shoes.
- Yeah.
So if you see someone walking with odd shoes that means they've - stolen your trainers.
- Yes.
Visiting an African market is an experience in itself cos when you look around you see what's going, there's a vibrancy and you can buy absolutely anything here.
Most of it, if not all of it, is second hand, you know? They haven't got the same hang-ups that we have over second-hand stuff.
Everywhere you look something is being sold or bought, and that's life here in Africa.
Oh, my days! Look at that! As far as the eye can see it's just market stalls and traders.
I'm going in, I'm going in 20 years ago this was a normal market, and second-hand clothes were sold alongside the more traditional West African textiles.
Ghana's well known for its brightly coloured clothes, but the explosion in disposable fashion in the rich world has caused a revolution here.
There are now thousands of stalls selling our old cast-offs, swamping the traditional African garments.
So tight in here! Recycled clothes have taken over from local dress, even on some of life's most traditional occasions.
Hello, what have you got here? What are these? This one is wedding dress.
Wedding dress.
So these are second-hand wedding dresses? - Yes.
- Can we have a look? Second-hand wedding dress.
That's beautiful.
And do people in Ghana, do they love buying the second-hand - wedding dresses? - Yes.
- So at a Ghanaian wedding they would wear one of these dresses? - Yes.
How much would one of these cost? This cost 50 Ghana cedis.
So that's like 10 to 15 pounds for one of these dresses.
This is like the boutique end of the market, you know.
You know, it's like the equivalent of Bond Street.
You can see some of the shops are slightly more marbled and more expensive stuff.
Look at this.
Hello, how you doing? - Good.
- What have you got here? - You've got some big coats here.
- Yeah.
Where are the coats from, which country? - England.
- England? - Yeah.
So who on earth would buy these coats, they're so hot and warm in Ghana? They take to travel.
They take to travel? So these coats are obroni wawu, - they're second-hand, they come from Europe.
- Yeah.
- To Ghana? And then back to Europe.
- And then back to Europe again.
Full circle.
- Yeah.
Ha! You even sell goggles.
Yeah, for big machine.
What, for motorbikes? Yeah, like this.
Our old cast-offs are not just sold here-- they've inspired a whole industry.
So what's going on here? Excuse me, sir, could you tell me what you're doing, please? Ironing? This is where our tired old clothes come to get a make-over.
You've got to love this place, there's a guy just over there who's turning trousers into skirts.
You've got this guy here, who's adding dye to jeans, making old, second-hand jeans look brand-new.
You've got this lady, who's making shirts more fitted because they come from North America.
And you've got this guy, who's ironing.
You've got a whole mini factory all based around second-hand clothing.
Every year, the market grows bigger, and now it even sprawls across an old railway yard.
Thank you.
Way! - One cedi.
- One cedi! OK.
1.
5! In this part of the market I found people selling cheaper clothes for just 25 pence! OK, let me do it right.
How do I do it? Like that? - And then like that.
- Yes! That's the African way.
Even when clothes are this cheap there's still a pecking order.
When we came here we heard people selling stuff for one cedi, two cedis, but your stuff is selling for four cedis, what's the difference between your stuff and their stuff? Many of Florence's customers have travelled miles to buy clothes they can then take back to their villages to sell on.
Florence, is it always like this when you open a bale, is it this chaotic all the time? The women here can remember a time when West African markets weren't dominated by used clothes.
Why don't you buy Ghanaian clothes? Why are you only buying second-hand European clothes? So if you had money, would you buy traditional Ghanaian clothes or would you buy second-hand European clothes? I was born in nearby Nigeria, and I remember my family wearing brightly coloured West African fabrics.
Now everybody's wearing Western cast-offs and I couldn't help wondering, what had happened to all those traditional clothes? So I headed into the countryside in search of a more African kind of clothing.
Going to need skills to get across here.
Which I obviously have! This is Kente cloth.
Traditionally it's only worn on special occasions by state officials and royal families.
Wearing a piece of cloth makes you more gorgeous-- like a king! Osei-Bonsu is a local historian who has studied the traditions of Kente.
To be able to do this, one has to undergo training, a year or more, to learn how to weave the very simple Kente.
And how long would it take to make something like this? Because it looks so intricate.
Well, this will take you about four months to weave.
- Four months?! - Yes, four months.
- Why so long? I know it's intricate, but why? Very intricate.
Each piece of cloth has its own name and symbolises a particular event or proverb.
There were times that we could not read and write and so we were keeping our history in the clothes that we wear.
So the cloth speaks volumes.
History, philosophy and literature-- everything.
In Ghana now, I see more people wearing obroni wawu, or second-hand clothes, you know, than ever.
So are traditional prints still as popular-- not just Kente, but the traditional clothing? Economics come into play, second-hand clothing brought in from Europe and America, it's cheaper, far cheaper.
And what kind of impact do you think that's having to the culture in Ghana? Because everybody seems to be dressed more like the West, like Westerners rather than Africans.
Well, we were trained, even when I was young, to believe that everything West is civilisation.
Our belief and respect for our own things has faded to a degree that, if we are not very careful, sometime, somewhere, someday, we would have to We would not see some of our own things any more.
I'm quite frustrated, because Africa has a rich history and a lot of people travel to Africa to see that.
And being someone who was born in Nigeria, I'm proud of that past.
These days everybody is keeping an English name or a Western name, in addition to his own name.
And they prefer being called the Western names to being called their local names.
That alone should tell you.
The food that we eat has changed.
We're eating more Western food than our own food.
It is killing our culture.
If there's no obroni wawu a lot of people would turn to the local type of dress.
But there is more at stake here than just traditions and culture.
Ghana used to have its own thriving textile industry making the famous printed, colour fabrics.
Factories employed more than 25,000 people, but today most of the textile companies have closed and the jobs have gone.
I headed east towards Lake Volta to meet some of the people still working in the industry.
I'm off to one of Ghana's last remaining factories that produces traditional cloth.
Akosombo Textiles is the last business in the country that still takes in raw cotton at one end to produce its finished fabrics out the other.
Steve Dutton is from Manchester and he's worked in textiles all his life.
He relocated to Africa 20 years ago to help manage a flourishing company that once employed 2,000 workers in this factory.
In 2009 we were producing getting on for 2 million metres a month, OK? - And, erm - Was that your peak production, was that? Yeah, that was about our peak.
And today, over that period, it's gone down by about 75%, - so currently - 75%?! - That's right.
It's quite an urgent situation, we feel as though we're right on the brink of not being able to carry on.
And what sort of impact would you say second-hand clothing has had on your industry? It's about usage, so for traditional cultural events people still use African print quite a lot.
But also, I've no doubt that people will use Western-style clothing-- if I can put it that way.
And if they're going to do that, they're going to go to the second-hand clothing market, because it's a whole lot cheaper.
But as well as the challenge from the second-hand clothes, this factory faces another threat.
Their unique Ghanaian designs have also been copied and undercut by cheap fakes from the var East.
What is really the biggest threat to our business and to the jobs is the fakes and the copies.
For example, this one has got a ticket of ATL, Number One, Akosombo Textiles Limited.
We have never produced a ticket like this.
- So that's a fake? - That is a fake.
- That's a Chinese fake? - Absolutely.
And they're cheeky enough to even put on that Yeah, they're using the brand, the logo.
We know it's a fake because of the overall quality.
So how does all of this make you feel? It's difficult for me to overemphasise just how close we are to closing down.
I'm very, very worried that this copying, if it's not challenged, if it's not stopped, if it's not minimised, is going to destroy us.
With poor infrastructure and high costs, African businesses struggle to compete with China's mighty clothing industry.
We survive at the moment basically on our special designs for particular events, but is that enough to keep us going? Honestly, I doubt it.
It really is touch-and-go now.
We are talking to the government here to try and get some assistance.
So, if help is there, we've got a chance.
If it isn't there, I think our days are numbered.
It's really sad that the Ghanaian textile industry is struggling so badly.
And the irony is, the only thing that's keeping this factory alive is death.
The company's last lifeline is making traditional fabrics specially designed for funerals-- which are often huge social events in Ghana.
Funerals are such a big part of the culture here and everywhere you go you see posters and banners of family members inviting people to come to funerals or to commemorate the lives of the person who's passed away.
It's still common here to buy a new outfit for a funeral-- made from the traditional fabrics that were once normal in everyday life.
- Hello.
- Hi.
Sometimes special designs are commissioned by the family of the deceased.
This looks amazing-- it's beautiful! Here's some African OK, this is the style.
So, maybe Wow, that looks cool.
Are these all for funerals? Yeah, you can wear it for a funeral.
I mean, obviously the colour has to be black.
It looks a bit glamorous, though.
That's the one.
Not in pink, though.
I needed an outfit because we'd been allowed to film at the funeral of a local celebrity.
Clothes at Ghanaian funerals are dominated by two colours-- black to symbolise death and red to convey the anger of loss.
You wouldn't know you were coming to a funeral.
It's so glamorous.
Ronnie Coaches was a well-known musician who died tragically young.
Mourners from all walks of life had come to his funeral.
It's like nothing I've ever seen before-- dancing and performing, photographers everywhere.
The atmosphere's incredible.
I've never seen so many smiles and so much happiness at a funeral.
But as Ronnie's coffin was taken for burial, the mood changed.
It's a real roller coaster of emotions when you come to a Ghanaian funeral because one minute everybody's up, the next minute it's really sombre and now they're taking the body off to the graveyard and just heavy emotions.
I feel like this is a real taste of Ghanaian culture-- the colours, the people and the celebration.
After six hours of music, partying and prayers, the 500 mourners who had come to pay their respects arrived at Ronnie's final resting place.
Throughout the day, I'd been struck by the fact that even here at a funeral, there were just as many Western clothes as traditional.
amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen This is the last and final respect we are giving to our son.
At a funeral, you are showing off not only the status of the one who's dead but the status of those who are alive so you don't want to wear the kind of clothing where everybody will brand it that you've been to folk's line to pick.
Professor Irene Odotei writes about popular culture.
She believes that Ghana's traditions are being undermined.
People are beginning to be more dressed up at funerals.
In the olden days it was, like, more sombre, kind of toned down but these days, people wear very long high heels and really, you see this, you can even think they're going to a dinner party.
The idea of dressing in Western dress to funerals, where did that come from? It's globalisation.
People are watching a lot of television, they themselves have not been really brought up to traditional values.
We are losing ground because urbanisation too has come in, a lot of them have come from the villages of wherever they are, where they had these influences, traditional influences, they've come to settle in the cities and in the cities you lose track.
These things with the second-hand clothes, what is it doing to the traditions in Ghana? From the olden days, this place has been a dumping ground for stuff and it continues to be a dumping ground.
When are we going to stop it? The Ghanaian textile industry relies on big occasions like this to make money and to sell clothes and I think, if people aren't going to wear traditional dress at big occasions like this, when are they going to wear it? It was time to get back on the trail of our second-hand clothes and head into the remote north-east of Ghana.
I wanted to meet some of the people in the poorest regions of the country who are wearing our old cast-offs.
In the market at Kumasi, I'd met women from this area buying bales of clothes to take back to their villages.
The women who travel to Kumasi market often go in buses like that one and they're cramped in there like sardines and it can be up to a three-day round trip for them.
By the time the clothes get here, they have been on an almost unbelievable journey.
Many were originally manufactured by poor workers in countries like Bangladesh and shipped thousands of miles to Britain.
After a few months in our wardrobes, they set off via the charity shops on a new journey to Africa.
From the port in Accra, they're driven hundreds of miles via Kumasi market, to this ferry port on the shores of Lake Volta.
On the ferry over to Kete Krachi, I met Osei.
He's one of the biggest local traders of what they call dead white man's clothes.
- Morning.
- Morning.
- How are you? - I'm fine.
So, this bale, is this yours? And where did it come from? So you prefer obroni wawu to the traditional clothing? Why? So it makes you unique? You stand out? Is there an alternative to obroni wawu? Is there anything else that the locals in Krachi or the Ghanaians could wear? Before the obroni wawu stalls arrived here ten years ago, people had to make their clothes last for years.
Clothes that you find here in Kete Krachi-- they've been rejected by everyone all over Ghana.
They're not going to be the ones picked in the capital city, Kumasi and Accra, people are not going to have these clothes and they're a bit more damaged, they're not high-end fashion.
It's like the clothes you'd find in a jumble sale and I can't imagine how many pairs of hands they've been through and we might not want them, but I reckon they're gold dust here.
brand new second hand don't bother show us brand new second hand you're just a nuisance brand new second hand From the ferry port, the clothes travel along dirt roads to the remotest villages.
The final stage of their journey is often on foot.
- Hello, good morning.
- Good morning.
I just want to ask, how do you manage to balance it on your head? It's just, I mean, it's incredible.
Isn't your neck getting tired? Can we see how heavy that is? Can I check the weight on your head? Oh, no! Whoa! Yeah! I don't know how she does this, I really don't.
Dina, you can have it back, there you go! Medase.
It's funny how second-hand clothes, you know, and especially football-- second-hand football stuff-- permeates the whole of this country.
- Chelsea fan? - Yeah.
And you've got Liverpool shorts on.
Judging by the size of them, I think they were worn by Jan Molby.
Dina's a single mum bringing up five children.
She walks up to ten miles from village to village selling clothes.
As we've been walking along, all these people, they know you, they stop and talk to you, are they all your customers? So why are you selling second-hand clothes? So if you weren't selling second-hand clothes, there would be no other way for you to earn money? Many of the villagers here in Gyen Gyen are subsistence farmers living on the equivalent of less than a pound a day.
Can you tell me why you love these clothes? Why you love obroni wawu so much? When you look through these clothes, you see Superdry, Next, Dorothy Perkins I could be on any high street in the UK, but I'm not, we're in a small village in north-eastern Ghana.
As well as selling the clothes, Dina also acts as a personal shopper.
Hey, hey, hey! Hey! Does it look good on him? You going to sell it to him? Even though these clothes cost less than 25p, the villagers here sometimes have to go into debt to buy them.
Dina, would you sell this on credit, so she can take it now and then she pays for it next week? Clothes like this we give away for to charity shops in the UK for free.
Are you surprised by that? Are you going to buy it? Oh, you've got a deal.
Look at that! Do this, do this, do this! Yeah! When I give away my clothes to charity shops in the UK, this is the last place I'd expect them to end up-- in a rural village in north-eastern Ghana.
And what's even more surprising is these people have next to nothing, yet they're probably supporting a lot of UK charities.
And what's even weirder than that is those charities are probably giving money to Africa to support these people, so it's just a bizarre merry-go-round.
It was incredible to see where our old clothes end up and in some ways, they've come full circle.
They're cheap garments made by some of the world's poorest people that end up being worn by some of the world's poorest people.
Affordable clothing has benefitted these villagers and provided some of them with a living.
Across Ghana and Africa, our second-hand clothes drive a vast industry of people, transporting, packing and selling them.
Come on! But I do find it a bit sad how Western clothing has spread across the world.
Go, go, go, go! Oh, nice pass! It worries me how it's affecting the culture because the last thing I would want to see is for everyone in the world to be dressed the same.
You going to play? All right, I'm going to turn around.
All behind me.
That way, that way, that way.
Ohh! The final stage of my journey took me back to the capital, Accra.
Despite the poverty I'd seen in the countryside, Ghana is actually an African success story.
It's one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
There is a clothing industry here as well and I headed to one of its most successful companies.
Sleek Garments employs around 300 workers making a wide range of clothes.
CEO Nora Bannerman has worked in the industry for 30 years and she's experienced its problems first-hand.
There's some unfair competition from imported garments and the worst of it is the used clothing.
I was going to say, what kind of impact has the second-hand clothing market had on your business? You know, for those in the industry who focus mainly on the local markets it's been very challenging and most of them have shut down their factories.
New shirts made in Ghana cost up to 40 times more than our second-hand ones.
So instead of competing, Nora concentrates on making work-wear for local businesses in Ghana.
This is for a mining company, this is a phone company, - these are security uniforms.
- So you make uniforms? - And so on.
We decided to focus on that and then strategise to get back into the market again.
Because of the tough competition, most of the clothes made here are actually exported.
Locally here in Ghana, the markets are pretty small for garments that are of one design, of one colour, of one fabric.
Our focus is on mass-producing clothing, mainly for export to the US and they buy in the thousands.
It's just a huge market.
In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen to the textile industry in Ghana? We need to be in business to create jobs for our people and create the wealth that they need to enable them to afford new garments, freshly made garments and so we need to look at this in totality and bring a change and change is always difficult, but change is always for good.
Imagine what we can do for our economy and once the economy is growing, things will change.
Nora thinks that only higher wages and less poverty will end the domination of second-hand clothes.
You see these young women? They work hard and they should be able to afford new clothing.
Why should they wear clothing that somebody else doesn't want any more? Do you think we'll ever see the day where there will be no longer obroni wawu or second-hand clothes in Ghana? That day will come.
That day will surely come.
It may be slow, but it's coming - and it will definitely come for sure.
- Brilliant.
The government here is also trying to persuade people to wear locally-made clothes.
Ten years ago, they introduced a local dress day.
The idea is that at the end of each week, office workers ditch their suits for more traditional colourful shirts and "Thank Ghana, it's Friday".
It's a desire to be Ghanaian.
It's still a working day so it's not as we are dressing down but we are dressing traditional - and also making the place a fun place to work, isn't it? - Yeah.
The workers in Ellen Hagan's recruitment company have embraced the scheme-- well, at least, most of them have.
I noticed not all of your workers are wearing traditional dress because I can see some people in that office over there.
Ah! Well, actually, she is.
She has combined the Western style with the African print.
So she's just trying to be trendy, you know, these are younger people, so Has traditional clothing become something just for the middle classes, something for people with money? I don't think so.
In everything on the market, there are different ranges or they prefer to wear non-traditional clothes, in which case it is easier to get the suits and the skirts from the obroni wawu rather than get a tailor to make a suit, a skirt suit for you.
Could we have a show of hands, right, if you were going out on a Saturday night to a party and you wanted to impress people, how many of you here would wear traditional clothing? To impress, definitely.
To impress, if it is to impress.
If it is to impress, then traditional clothing.
That's the majority, except for this man! Who's laughing in the corner! Why? Just tell us why would you rather wear Western clothing? We're the younger generation, we like to look more trendy so you see most of the Western clothes, the foreign clothes are more trendy to the younger generation.
So more of the times, you will see them wearing the the Western clothes.
I mean, I wonder if you think, the influence of Western clothing, do you think it's to do with globalisation? You can go on YouTube, the MTV channels and you're seeing designs, you want to mix it, you want to merge it, you don't want to look like you are too Ghanaian - when you are going to an event.
- Why not? Because you want to know that, for us, the youth, mostly it's because you know what's out there.
It's cool to merge the two now.
A couple of years back, it was cool to be only European.
Now it's cooler to be African.
I think Ghana's relationship with clothes is changing.
the younger generation, especially the ones with money, like the people we met today, they're creating their own trends and mixing traditional styles with Western styles and for them, it's all about what looks cool.
If African clothing companies can't compete with our second-hand clothes on price, maybe they can on style.
I went to a catwalk show where I met Ghanaian designers who are trying to appeal to the country's growing middle-class by fusing traditional African prints with high fashion.
Some of them, like Kofi Ansah and Joyce Ababio, have worked or trained in Europe and the US.
Tell me about the state of the fashion industry in Ghana.
We are trying to get the whole process cheaper for us, so that we can go out there and compete.
I'd rather see us being able to use our own fabrics to create, you know, interpret it in any way that we want to, as opposed to obroni wawu.
My dream is to make $10 shirts as opposed to $100 dollar shirts.
I'm training the people and I'm looking for them to become fashion designers, then, you see, I have to look at it from another point-- I want to see them actually be able to develop in the industry and take our clothing or our fabrics to do something instead of second-hand clothing.
Because if there's second-hand clothing out there, what am I doing with my people that I'm training? I want to see them be able to become fashion designers as well.
As the economy grows, the new middle-class should provide a market for these local African-inspired designs.
And I'm sensing a lot of optimism.
Ghana is changing and the hope is that in the future, more and more Ghanaians will be wearing cool clothes designed by Ghanaian designers.
The global trade in second-hand clothes has grown into a billion-pound business.
And it's being fed by our own addiction to cheap, disposable fashion made in the Far East.
Before leaving Ghana, I returned to Accra's wholesale clothes market, where 1 million pounds worth of obroni wawu arrives every week.
Over the years, I've given away lots of my old clothes to charity shops.
I never in my wildest dreams thought it would create something like this.
It feeds so many people, this industry.
At the same time, it has decimated the country's clothing industry and is wiping out some of the traditions that make Africa such a vibrant continent.
It does make me think, you know, do we really need that many clothes? But then on the flip side, I think it's making a lot of people happy over here and it's given a lot of people work, so there's definitely pros and cons but I know I definitely don't need as many clothes as I have.
I don't! I don't need 20 pairs of jeans.