- Pearl Amoah, an Accra based classic embodiment of both morphological and intellectual beauty to behold became a Ghana Beauty Queen at 16 and an International Beauty Queen at 18. As a brand ambassador of African beauty and African fashion, she has now settled into the business of projecting African heritage through the promotion of African fashion. She is the founder/CEO of PAF Fashion Outlet.
Born in Ghana, lived over a decade in the United States of America, this meritorious daughter of Ghana and a noteworthy celebrated ambassador of African heritage, Pearl Amoah, can in the most modest manner, be described as the pride of African women. She possesses a beauty that never fades. Twenty-six years after winning her first feat as a beauty queen (Miss Universe Ghana), with other feats following the succession of two years each, she still glows with such a stunning beauty that she can even win another beauty pageant contest in the next ten years.
Perhaps, it is because her rise to stardom started in the fashion world, or perhaps, because she graduated from the faculty of fashion and artistry in the College, that she has decided to pitch her entrepreneurial tent in the fashion industry.
PAF OUTLET: PAF Outlet stands for Pearl Amoah Fashion outlet. The journey started in 2016 when Miss Pearl Amoah started a fashion reality shown known then as The Pearl Amoah Fashion Show, abbreviated as TPAFS. The object was to bring together fashion designers in Ghana not to only showcase their fashion styles and products, but to actually have the opportunity to sell their fashion designs directly to the people of Ghana at affordable prices. This gesture was informed by the fact that all other fashion shows at the time didn’t create a platform for designers to sell their products. All they did was to come and showcase their products and after that, they go back home with their products to their stores and end up sewing for themselves and their relations because no market has been created for them to sell directly to the people But it is different at PAF Outlet.
PAF Outlet brings designers into a forum where they get informed about how they can make their fashion designs available and affordable to the general public so that they can earn money on a more regular basis rather than spending much money and time in making a single piece of fashion that it may take them several months or weeks to sell it to one personality that can afford to buy it. This act discouraged majority of the Ghanaians from patronizing their own fashion designs (wears), thereby encouraging the popularization of English designs among Ghanaians.
In fact, Ghanaians were becoming Black English people than the blacks that they are in terms of fashion designs. This is the course that PAF outlet is here to champion. African designers have to make their own designs affordable and available to the populace of Ghana so that the people can afford to wear their own cultural wears while the designers themselves will be able to make everyday money to live the lifestyle they deserve to live.
‘Our mission at PAF outlet is to bring together Ghanaian, and indeed, African designers, and inform them to make their designs and collections available and affordable to the ordinary people of Ghana and Africa. That way they will make everyday money and the people will wear their own traditional wears in modern designs,’ she said.
PRODUCTS RANGE: PAF Outlet houses assorted African fashion designs for people of all ages, classes and sex. There are designs for societal men and women, common men and women, male children, female children and even stage and performing artistes. There is a fashion design for everybody at PAF Outlet.
CHALLENGES: One of the stiffest challenges PAF outlet is facing currently is the fact that the Ghanaian people are yet to move on in terms of fashion.
‘Our people are still borrowing from the past. They are not ready to move along with new trends. Then, again the attitude of some of the designers who still prefer to spend all their money and their time in making one particular design in the hope that one societal man or societal woman will buy it at an outrageous amount of money rather than spending the money and time in making many affordable designs that can fetch them everyday money. That is another serious challenge confronting not only PAF Outlet but the entire fashion industry generally. We also have the problem of most fashion designers here in the country being overzealous to copy the western world, but often, they copy them in the wrong way. For instance, many of them stage fashion shows to show the world what they have designed, which is good. But, the problem is that they don’t do their home work well enough to ensure that they have ready buyers sitting in front of them at their fashion shoes. So, at the end of the show, they go back with their designers to decorate their stores. My advice to such designers is that they should start making designs that will be affordable to the Ghanaian populace so that they can begin to make everyday money and live the lifestyle that their creativity is meant to provide for them.
HARNESSING DESIGNERS IN THE HINTERLANDS: On how she plans to harness the designers that are not in the capital city of Accra, Pearl Amoah, says that she was confident she will be able to reach out to such designers in the hinterlands through her periodic fashion shows/exhibitions which are widely advertised via handbills and other mediums. She cited an instance of a fashion show she staged some years ago, which brought designers from all parts of Ghana, North, South, East, and West, in attendance and that those who emerged winners at the shows are all doing very well in the fashion industry today. This, she plans to continue to execute in order to reach out to those designers that are far from Accra.
GAINS AND PAINS: On whether venturing into fashion promotion business has paid off, Pearl answered in an emphatic affirmation.
‘Yes, it has paid off, because I am enjoying what I am doing. I am achieving my aim, which is to restore African pride. So, again, I say it has paid off and it will continue to pay off.’
FUTURE PROSPECT FOR PAF: Speaking of the future prospect for PAF outlet, this elegant and hilarious beauty Queen did not mince her words. She responded with a cheerful emphasis that she was confident that PAF outlet will be established in all the major cities of all African countries, beginning with Nigeria, in the next few years.
ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS AND UPCOMING DESIGNERS: To the government officials, beauteous pearl advised that they should organize seminars at which government provided opportunities shall be unveiled to students of fashion designs in the country so that they can tap the opportunities and establish themselves as entrepreneurs and create employments for others as well as create wealth for the country. And, for upcoming designers, she advises them, especially those that are fresh graduates of fashion designs, to first attach themselves to some established fashion industries where they can work to learn from experienced designers and gain the knowledge of how to fare in the industry before they can start their own fashion business. Fresh graduates of fashion designs can also take their papers to big fashion industries and apply for a period of internship so that they can learn and gain more practical experience that will help them excel when they eventually establish their own fashion design business.
BUSINESS LOCATION: PAF outlet is at the moment located at Junction Mall, between Nungua barrier and Tema beach road, in Accra Ghana.
Tel: +233 557 968 337
Email: thepafoutlet@gmail.com
