Fabric symbology: Correlation between President Akufo-Addo’s fabric choice and his COVID-19 addresses to Ghanaians

Although there is no mandatory (legal) dress code for the President of Ghana, it is noteworthy that the President’s choice of garment for public engagements, as the first Iconic Figure of the land, is a critical identity construction issue with an additional possibility of promoting the indigenous Ghanaian textile products for massive (inter)national patronage. This remains a pertinent concern to Ghanaian fashion devotees and scholars. This qualitative descriptive study, therefore, examines eight (8) random-purposively sampled authentic Ghanaian print fabrics (garments) adorned by President Akufo-Addo for his COVID-19 addresses to establish their nonverbal correlative communication repositories with the contents of the messages delivered to Ghanaians. The study elicited views through interviews from seasoned Ghanaian fabric manufacturing experts and fabric retailers regarding the symbology of the sampled fabrics. It was found that the Ghanaian authentic print fabrics (garments) adorned by President Akufo-Addo for his COVID-19 updates symbolically correlated with the contents of the addresses delivered to Ghanaians. Therefore, the President’s continuous use of Ghanaian authentic print fabrics for his COVID-19 addresses communicates his Ghanaian nationalistic identity; promotes the beautiful and symbolically rich Ghanaian fabrics for the patronage of a larger (inter)national market. This stands to attract massive market for Ghanaian print fabrics thereby positively impacting the economic gains of the ailing Ghanaian textile industry. It would therefore be novel if further investigation is conducted on the possible economic impact of the President’s adornment of authentic Ghanaian print fabrics (garments) for public occasions on the Ghanaian textile industry.