ABSTRACT
Throughout the world, fashion design is considered as the art and application of various designs or natural beauty to clothing and other accessories necessary for human dressing. Products of Fashion & Design are influenced by cultural and social opportunities and as such vary from place to place and from time to time. The elements and principles of design are important components of every design work and as such often discussed in almost every beginning design course with basic terminology for understanding the concepts of design. In Ghana, especially the Wa municipality, tailors and dressmakers lack the requires skills and knowledge in basic elements and principles of design and one could easily notice that most of the dresses constructed by the tailors and dressmakers are out the use of basic elements and principles of designs as shape, space, lines, form, colour, value, and texture. Consequently, the current study to investigate how effective use of elements and principles influences garment development in the Wa municipality using mixed method which combined both qualitative and quantitative techniques with sample of 100 respondents (Dressmakers and Tailors). The findings showed that majority of the dressmakers and tailors in the Wa municipality lack knowledge on the elements and principle of design which have affected their effective use. The study therefore concluded that the ineffective use of elements and principles of design has negatively affected garment construction. The study therefore recommends that government together with respective associations should institute courses or programmes capable of enhancing the knowledge of tailors and dressmakers for better products.
