Boie and Bill: Meet the brothers who convert plastic waste into fashion

To give shape or form to; or to create something, usually with careful attention by the use of imagination and ingenuity can be the definition of fashion.

In other publications, fashion is defined as a style of clothing or a way of behaving that is popular at a place at a particular time.

Some may call it style, look, trend, rage and many other names, but they are all synonymous with the word 'fashion'.

Fashion has been their thing for a very long time, since they grew up having their mom and aunt as their "fashion designers" in the family as they were the ones who dresses them up for occasions.

This imbibed in them the sense of fashion from infancy as they always saw materials being transformed into wonderful designs and the pieces trashed.

Boie and Bill would put together these pieces and turn them into wearable costumes. That was the point at which their love for creative designing started with Boie coming up with the creative ideas while Bill does the sewing.

They used different kinds of materials to create their costumes ie; old gowns, African print outfits, mirror or glass outfits and most especially plastic etc.

One may ask, how can plastic be transformed into a costume? Of course, that is possible and we will focus on the “Conversion of Ghana’s Plastic Waste into Fashion”.

Boie said, "Seeing all kinds of rubbers being thrown away in and around Accra each week I go there always got me wondering what I can do with them as a creative?"

These two brothers would gather as much plastic waste as they could and create the same designs they were already doing.

After getting the rubber costumes ready, “I wore them for a photo shoot, posted them on my social media pages, and surprisingly, people liked them and requested us to create some for them, which we did”

This has become a source of income for these brothers and will also be serving as a source of employment for models with the intention of showcasing their outfits.

Fashion trends change from time to time and this new fashion sense is geared towards the awareness creation and high patronage of these innovative fashion designs in Ghana.

Boie and Bill chose to create these ‘uncomfortable and unusual’ clothes which cannot be obtained anywhere else but only from them and also turn minds away from the normal clothing lines.

"The big designer brands we yearn to wear also started small from the scratch and when people accepted and purchased their products, they grew to become internationally accepted brands; and same can happen to Boie and Bill brand.

"Do we face challenges? Of course yes! We do face challenges in putting together the idea of what to create with the rubbers since sewing them with a sawing machine is not that easy. It may get torn so we need to add to it a fabric that can hold them in one piece."

Most often, “we try experimenting but the outcome turns out to be successful even though it may look raw, just as the designs we started with but as time goes on, we will be adding up more styles.”

One important statement they made was that “with creativity, we do not force it. We just make it flow and also as Christians, we pray a lot for ideas.

"Same for the mirror jackets, we gather pieces of unused mirrors / glasses from glass makers and with the idea of gluing them to fabrics.

"We actually tried some for personal use but people found it very fascinating and started making demands for them. Since then, the glass makers began to charge them for the broken pieces."

In today's world, there is more room for creativity and that is an advantage to be grabbed and made good use off since it can also generate funds for creators and help create a high sense of love for fashion in Ghanaians.

This is a new trend of design in Ghana today that must be embraced as it is done for the big brands most people in and out of Ghana want to put on.

Money can also be generated out of this as well as creating employment for these young guys and others as well to reduce unemployment in the country.