Culture Dimensions of Clothing in Ghana: An Akan Perspective

The language of clothes as a symbol of identify is embellished in the cultural and traditional beliefs of the people of Ghana within the West African Sub-region. The Akan, forms the largest ethnic group with well establish systems of the Arts, politics and culture which reflect in their mode of adornment over the years.These clothes and adornments are symbolic and reflects power,wealth, status, age, and other facet of their lives.The significance of clothing in the Ghanaian for that matter Akan society, is well exhibited in traditional institutions like chieftaincy, priests and priestesses as well as the rites of passage; birth, puberty, marriage and death. However, with the passage of time, cultural fusion and modernity bring dynamism to the mode of body adornment.These are inter-woven into the cultural system of clothing, thereby blending tradition with modernity in a contemporary fashion style.Though some of these changes are considered positive and welcoming,others are regarded to be impacting negatively and deeply into the moral, modesty and social fabrics of the Ghanaian society which is revealed largely through the use of clothes.