‘Give the fashion industry a listening ear’ - Abrantie the gentleman

Founder and creative designer of the award-winning Bespoke fashion brand Abrantie the Gentleman, Oheneba Yaw Boamah, has expressed his sentiments over the non-involvement of fashion in the Tourism, Arts and Culture industry.

According to him, there are no rights whatsoever that protects the rights of fashion designers and their creative work; thus other fashion designers pilfer others’ creative works and go scot-free.

“Unlike music and movies, the fashion industry which includes the creative designers, tailors and models are not as protected when it comes to the entertainment industry.”, Abrantie said.

The product of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) took to his Instagram page to express the shock of seeing the knockoff and “messed up” version his designs and also his custom logo being used by other tailors.

To him, these tailors are using his brand to market themselves without giving him any heads up or regard.

“Imagine someone taking Sarkodie or any other person’s beat or song without his knowledge, rights reserved to protect his music and the music industry as a whole would find that defaulter guilty and hence promotes creativity and deters others from stealing in that industry. However same can’t be said about ours.”

“We also go through a lot of processes and work hard to produce the designs we come out with so it is very painful to see someone using your hard work without regarding it.”, he continued.

The most shocking to him was when he saw one of his custom shirt designs on Bullet at Ebony’s one week celebration, knowing very well that he didn’t design and sew that shirt in particular.

He however, did not blame Bullet for wearing or purchasing a knockoff of his design but rather the designer who made it.

He urged the media and the Tourism, Arts and Culture industry to throw more light on fashion as a sub of the entertainment industry and make known rights that protect their brands and designs as fashion designers.

“Ghanaians are constantly being compared to Nigerians because of things like this. They protect their fashion designers. Why can’t we do same? Nigerians have done it so we can also do it.”