In my honest opinion, what took some level of shine from this year’s awards was the fact that, the organisers were a little complacent, especially looking at the magic they put up last year. I mean their maiden edition was so close to perfection.

The awards

The Glitz Style Awards was instituted by Glitz Africa to celebrate and reward personnel in the fashion fraternity. It is also aimed at creating talents in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

The winners for the various categories were arrived at via voting on the Glitz Africa Facebook and Instagram pages by fans by liking their individual images of the nominees. That accounted for 25%, 30% from fashion Congress community made up of 500 members and Style Awards board had 45%.

Cocktails

The night started with the normal cocktails that precede every awards show of this magnitude. I feel that the cocktail segment was dragged, for whatever reasons, I can't tell but compared to the maiden edition, this year's definitely scored low on my card so far as the cocktail was concerned. I and many others feel it was needlessly dragged.

But it looked like people were excited to see each other as they chatted and sipped on their drinks. From the former first lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings to Joyce Aryee to the PR agents to movie stars and even to people without a recognised title, the place was lively with all sorts of conversations.

As the hugs and the murmured conversations continued, the photographers took the opportunity to capture some images.

Red carpet

Prolonging the cocktails segments meant an automatic delay for the red carpet segment, an important segment of the awards. Personally I didn’t feel the red carpet this year. Last year was massive, this year, a lot was missing. I’m hoping before I wrap up this piece, I will be able to know exactly what was missing on the red carpet this year.

Start

Fifteen minutes after 10pm, when patrons had made their way into the auditorium, singer Adina surfaced to entertain the patrons with songs from her repertoire. A lot of people fell in love with her opening act. But the patrons loved Sika Osei’s introduction. It was topnotch.

Opinions

After the event, I decided to sample views from some patrons of the event. I asked about their high and low moments. Views expressed were not new so far as awards schemes are concerned.

“I’m very happy as an organiser because for me we spent so much time and energy, sleepless nights to put the show together and to see people happy about the event, I think it makes me so happy, I’m looking forward to next year already,” CEO of Glitz Africa, Claudia Lumor said.

She continued, “I am my worst critic and all the time I’m thinking what went wrong, what could we have done better. So sometimes the things we want to do, we can’t do them, not because we can’t do but because we don’t have the financial support to do them. So I think so far, I’m happy but we can do better next time.”

Timing

In terms of the timing, the red carpet and the event itself started late than the advertised time. What can she say about it?

“Yes, we were late but I think that’s something we need to improve on because we had so many people on the red carpet and it was really moving slow, we were trying to organise so it’s not crowded on the red carpet but people were delaying on the red carpet, so it really affected the show but it’s something we need to work on to improve next year.”

Rating

As the organiser, her genuine ratings matters since the patrons had their ratings too. How would she rate this year’s edition?

“Oh my God, I think I should leave it to you to do the rating. Oh my God, don’t put me in this … I think you do the rating, allow the fans to do the rating,” she said amidst laughter.

“I think it was good. For me I wanted to have a tasteful event and I think we just did that but how can we improve on the things you said, especially the timing, we wanted to start at 9pm, but we started way after 10pm, but the good thing is when we started, we didn’t break so it makes it easy for people to finish and go,” she said dodging my rating question.

But I insisted she rated it. With loud laughter she said, “I don’t know how to rate please. I think you should rate it for us.”

High and Low moments

There are high and low moments of every awards scheme. The Glitz Style Awards was not an exception.

“My low moment would be when the show had to take a little much more time before it started but apart from that I think everything was good. The setting was beautiful, the performances was quite okay. I really like Adina’s performance, it was great. I think all the winners are really deserving ones, honestly if you ask my opinion” Nana Akua Addo, winner of the Best Dressed Celebrity on the red carpet said.

“I would like to say a big kudos to the organisers of the Glitz Style Awards. it’s a force to reckon with and I feel we should all be part of such movement and support it,” she added

“It’s a great initiative. It was great but I was a little bit disappointed. I was expecting to win and it didn’t come my way. But all the same as a nominee, we are all winners. That’s all I can say,” Abrantie the Gentleman who was nominated and lost the Designer of the Year category said.

“For me, it was really a great night. There were some few disappointments, some people we were expecting to win, didn’t win but all the same, some few people won and I’m happy about it,” Senam Faith, a Fashion PR and blogger said.

“I think the whole production was amazing but as compared to last year’s it dragged and a lot of people were complaining. They wanted to go home. As for the lows, certain people I thought were going to take home awards didn’t. Others I have never even heard of or seen anywhere made it and it surprised me … I’m hoping next year when you guys make nominations for stylish presenters on TV, you will call my name,” said Adwoa Saah, host of Kumkum Bhagya.

Like many others, KOD was also disappointed that he didn’t win in his category. He lost out to his colleague at EIB, Berla Mundi. “It was an amazing night. The only mishap was the fact that I didn’t win in the category of the Most Stylish Radio Personality but I picked up something for my brother [Bola Ray]. Performances on point, stage design on point, big up Glitz Africa,” KOD said.

“It’s my first time and it’s their second edition. I say congratulations to all the winners. My time will certainly come,” said Akumaa, ending with her Medaase line.

You may not agree with some of the opinions expressed but that’s fine. Congratulations to Glitz Style Awards and to all the winners but … let’s see it grow from strength to strength.