Let the lawn wars begin

Tis the season of lawn aunties and bilboards with Karshma Kapoor - it is a summer of lawn.

Come summer and all women hail the arrival of lawn — the three-piece fabric. Yes, do keep the hot weather conditions of the country in mind, but in the recent past what we have seen is the onslaught of one customer against the other, at the cash counters of great exhibits, which mostly take place in big cities of the country.

This time round, things were a little different, before even winter ended in Karachi, the first lawn wars began with the adverts, with the first major exhibition by the end of January, of J Lawn by Junaid Jamshed. Come February, and there was Mausummery followed by Nadia Hussain. And with the month about to end, dozens more are in queue. Clearly, the lawn wars are well and truly under way.

March is said to be its peak season, with the number of such exhibitions peaking by around mid-March. Of course, this is a boon to the female shoppers, many of whom must wait for the whole year for lawn season to come.

What one has seen and explored is that besides the textile giants who are involved in it, a league of fashion designers have become directly involved as well. And why wouldn’t they, since quite clearly there must be lots of money in this business.

Pakistan is said to be a poor country, where people chide and complain about the basic necessities of life being extremely expensive, but whet it comes to buying a three piece suit for Rs2.400 there is no problem. And if readers do not believe me, all they have to do is go and stand outside one of these exhibitions — the rush would make most observers think that something is being given out for free!

Lawn is a dominant textile industry of Pakistan, and as the years go by, one will only see the market growing. This is good for the local industry and in fact also a boon for the local advertising sector since many of those making the lawns make good use of advertising their brands.