Some call her African fabrics ambassador and that is exactly what beautiful Ghanaian actress Ebi Bright deserves to be called.
She is one of the few Ghanaian actresses who do not feel ashamed to be seen in African fabrics at social events.
In recent times, Ebi has never stepped out of her home without a touch of African fabrics in her outfits.
Last week, NEWS-ONE caught up with the actress who told the paper that her style of dressing was a big part of her identity as an African.
Not only does she use her style to celebrate her origin but also her values and way of thinking. She has stated that she admires Ben Brako and Daddy Bosco of Hitz FM for such values.
“I am an African woman and I am very proud of my origin. I am very proud of my ethnicity. I don’t even have one African nationality. I’m from West Africa; half Nigerian and half Ghanaian. These are rich and strong vibrant cultures.
“So if I don’t celebrate this in my life and in the ways that I look at things and in the ways that I express things, then it is a great disservice not only to myself, but hopefully the generation that will come after me. To quote Hugh Masakela, he says that ‘it will be bad if our children who will come after us will say oh they say we used to be Africans long ago’ because gradually our belief and way of life, our pride who we used to be, is eroding. So there has to be a renaissance of that. For it is very important and that is part of my identity as African woman.”
She said she started wearing locally-produced fabric when she began to take pride in and understand her origin.
For instance she is crazy about beads because she has Dangme blood in her.
“I am not sure when I discovered I was crazy about beads but it must have happened right at the time I began to take more interest in who my people were. I know ok I’m Ijo girl, I am also from Ada. The Dangme people love beads, so subconsciously, it over took me. Even though I don’t live in the village, I carried it on my contemporary dressing. The more we begin to love where we come from and take pride in it, automatically our consciousness changes. I find myself wearing this (referring to her African fabric). Even when I am wearing English style, I prefer African fabrics. That is how it happens, not very consciously just unconsciously.”
Ebi told NEWS-ONE that it was not too expensive to dress in Africa fabrics unlike clothes from the Western world.
“It depends. That is the beauty of it. It is not more expensive than wearing English clothes because I can tell you that a plethora of good designers, just ordinary seamstresses will make you good cloth. This is what my mother wears, this is what the woman in the market wears. I think everybody can dress in African wear.”
Most of her African styles are done by her sister’s Masaka creations in Tema Community 7
She believes African celebrities have not been able to really promote the continent’s cloths on the international cycle.
“If you put something good out, people don’t have a choice, they will follow it. Tell you what, if celebrities haven’t even paid attention to African clothing but once you a find African girl wearing it, you will want to wear it as well. So I think they (African celebrities) do have the responsibility and we should have taken it a long time ago. No doubt people watch them all over the world. People know many stars from here. I won’t mention names but you know what I mean. They are international stars. If they are wearing African fabric everybody will be looking and people will recognize that it is a legitimate style of dressing. So it can go really really far. Let’s do something of pride and celebrate who we are,” she stated.
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