In the Studio: Kwaku Bediako
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ghanaian fashion innovator Kwaku Bediako is redefining luxury with sustainability at its heart. We step inside his world as he transforms second-hand garments into bold, high-fashion pieces, worn by global stars such as Stevie Wonder and Ian Wright. It was when he noticed how much material was being thrown away, that he decided to create a new brand, Cacao, where discarded fabrics can become the material for garments worn to red carpet events across the world. Kwaku has been commissioned by music producer GuiltyBeatz to make him a bespoke outfit ahead of this year's Grammy awards in LA and Daniel Dadzie goes with Kwaku as he hunts for second hand clothes at Kantamanto, Accra's largest thrift market. It's a place where the past fashions of Europe meet their future in Africa.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:08.1 | Many people across the globe throw out their old clothes without thinking where they may end up. |
| 0:15.0 | Well, it could be into the hands of one of Ghana's top fashion designers, Quiku Bidyaku, |
| 0:22.4 | who's making it his mission to transform unwanted second-hand garments into eye-catching pieces, not only for his streets, sports |
| 0:29.2 | and classic collections, but for the red carpet as well. |
| 0:32.7 | To watch an almost dead piece being brought back to life. |
| 0:38.0 | It almost feels like you have a new family. |
| 0:40.1 | I am Daniel Dazzi, and I'll be following Quiku as he creates some new looks from some old |
| 0:45.7 | clothes to grace the Grammy Music Awards in Los Angeles. |
| 0:49.8 | It's to really reimagine and redefine what sustainability means and what sustainable fashion or |
| 0:57.3 | the sustainable world could look like. |
| 1:00.4 | Kweku is the founder and creative director of Chocolate Clothing Global, making designer clothes for |
| 1:06.1 | celebrities and precedents around the world, the likes of Steve Harvey, Stevie Wonder and Michael B. Jordan. |
| 1:13.4 | He skittered out Ghana's famous black stars, as well as most recently, athletes from the Basketball |
| 1:19.6 | Africa League from his factory here in Accra. |
| 1:24.2 | Last year, he launched his sustainable brand cakao, creating new colourful Patrick outfits, |
| 1:30.9 | made from the offcuts of his own designs, along with clothes discarded by people from across Europe and the States, |
| 1:37.9 | which end up being sold in Garner's markets. |
| 1:40.3 | The old is a new new, from waste to your wastes and from trash to trend. |
| 1:45.7 | I meet Kweku at his new factory in the west of the city. |
| 1:50.0 | Everywhere I look, there are little scraps of fabric, bottles of buttons and dyes, and lots of noisy sewing machines. |
| 1:58.1 | And of course, the raw material for his creations, ready along the wall in neatly arranged sacks. |
... |
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