Claudia Lumor - a mark of glitz and fashion
It was all an attempt to recreate at home, something she had fondly missed from her time away. And before trying to recreate that, Lumor was only trying to answer a question her husband asked her about her next steps, after leaving a well-paying job.
Glitz Africa evolved from that moment of fondness. The beautiful glossy Glitz Africa magazine you find on store shelves, and the Glitz Africa Fashion Week, had their beginnings in her answer to what she had missed from her time living in London.
When Lumor moved to London for a master’s degree at the University of Westminster, she worked part-time at a few fashion shops where her roles included helping customers pick the clothes that fit them best. She did it effortlessly, she remembers in hindsight and was a hit with all her customers. If she had kept that in mind earlier, we would probably have had her influence on the fashion industry in Ghana earlier than we did.
But she didn’t, and in her admittedly stubborn nature, stuck to her plan to make it big as a corporate career woman. “I wasn’t one of those people who would say ‘I knew I always wanted to run a magazine’. No. My thinking was that I would grab all the experience I needed working in the UK, come back to Ghana, and use the experience to grow on the corporate career ladder here. I never thought that I would be working for myself. What would I be doing? Set up a bank or what?” she says hysterically. The plan worked well, but only so far. After her master of laws degree in Corporate Finance Law, she joined Santander bank in London.
Back to Ghana
A few years into taking in the experience there, she resettled to Ghana, first because she was starting a family at home with her husband she had married not long before. Sticking to the script, she found a job at a local bank, with her sights firmly on a top executive position. But it didn’t go as planned, and she resigned not long after because “the job had become stifling. The corporate politics was killing my soul,” she explains.
For somebody who sleeps with a notepad at her bedside to capture any ideas that might come in the dead of night, she craved a job where there was some more room for creativity. Years before, she had some of her best memories as an event organiser on KNUST campus, and held creativity as her sword. Her friends still talk about the Miss KNUST pageant she produced, and the hall week celebration she organised and oversaw. “I was natural at it – I just didn’t know. When I submitted my forms to stand for the entertainment chair position, all the other people withdrew because it was like ‘Claudia is going to win this’”, she recalls, pointing us to something in her that she should have seen earlier than she did. When she pulls off the biggest fashion event in Ghana on the calendar every year (Glitz Africa Fashion Week), people who know that period of her past, are not surprised.
Out of the bank job, and starting a family, her answer to her husband’s question about what she missed from the UK – “the fashion magazines” – put everything in perspective for her. She could start one here, release her creative juices, tell success stories from here, and live blissfully doing something she loves. When I meet her at her Osu office, it’s clear to me from her energy and passion that she is at a good place.
Making strides
The feat Lumor has pulled in magazine publishing in Ghana is no mean feat, considering she had no background or experience in publishing or journalism. Having set her mind on the idea, she spent over a year learning all she could about the world of publishing.
Lumor chose the name “Glitz” because she wanted to tell good stories about Ghana and Africa and that is exactly what the quarterly magazine tries to do with inspiring stories about various people. As editor-in-chief and producer, Claudia revels in her role as a curator of these stories. The latest issue – the 15th - on my coffee table is adorned with the faces of Konadu Rawlings, Ursula Owusu and Hannah Tetteh all looking significantly more fashionable than you might remember them.
In addition to telling inspiring stories, Lumor has - through Glitz Africa fashion week and Glitz Style awards - become a champion for the fashion industry. Almost single-handedly, she has redefined the fashion narrative in Ghana and created lots more opportunities for industry professionals like photographers, models, fashion designers and make-up artists.
Beyond all the glitz and glamour though, Lumor is very much a stay-at-home girl who loves spending time with her family. Her children are her greatest source of joy and says her happiest moments were at the labour ward, when they were born.
Growing up in Kumasi, Lumor watched her mother run a number of shops while raising five children and creating a loving nurturing home. With such a positive early influence, Lumor makes no excuses for success at home with the family, or out of it in the industry.
Given the transformative impact Glitz Africa has had in the last five years in Ghana, Lumor can be forgiven for raising her perfectly manicured fingers to a glass of the finest champagne.