Knockoff: An Emerging Trend in The Ghanaian Fashion Industry: A Case of Greater Accra Metropolis (Published)
The goal of the study was to better understand the new fashion trend in Ghana, its difficulties, and the future of a few large-scale fashion industries there, particularly in the Greater Accra Metropolis, as well as the implications for fashion education. It also aimed to suggest potential solutions to the many problems that come with competition from foreign fashion industries. Industry associations and legal academic communities continue to dispute whether original fashion designs should be legally protected from copycats. There is disagreement even over the basic issue of whether a copycat’s impacts on the profitability of an original design are good or bad. For this study, the researchers used both quantitative research strategy and a descriptive research design. 20 respondents were chosen at random by the researchers utilizing judgment and purposive selection methods. The respondents’ quantitative data were gathered using a semi-structured questionnaire. Pie charts, bar charts, and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used to examine the results of the questionnaires. The results showed that generating your design is expensive and time-consuming when you develop your own. Once more, the study showed that it was simpler to produce knockoffs than one’s designs, which explains why fashion designers are more likely to imitate than to create original designs. Furthermore, it was discovered that counterfeit goods sell off more quickly than original designs. Based on the research’s conclusions, the study recommended that fashion designers be given stronger intellectual property protection to deter copying of their labour-intensive creations, that industry stakeholders enforce intellectual property protection to stop piracy, and that legislators take into account how increased piracy protection will affect society as a whole, examining the socioeconomic aspects of the fashion business is necessary since stronger IP protection could result in a downward trend. The study’s conclusions and suggestions would help to lessen the multiple difficulties foreign fashion businesses presented to Ghanaian fashion designers.
Keywords: Emerging Trends, fashion designers, fashion industry, knockoff, patents and copyrights