Ladies, it’s getting out of hands.

In days of yore, Gul Ahmed, Al Karam Textiles and Sitara Lawn would roll out their three piece lawn suits with hideous kalaf-walay dupattas and that was THAT. For the whole seasons. You know you’ve grown up in the three-piece lawn era if you’ve gone through the torture of having to forcefully buy those horrendous dupattas and paper thin shalwars because you fell in love with the shirt sandwiched in between those two.

Source: Flickr

Things have more than changed now. Instead of seasonal lawns we now have “VOLUMES” of lawn madness. Thanks to the army of Lawn producers, we now have a separate volume of lawn prints for every week of the month. Fall, summer, sweltering summers, summery Spring, floral Spring, pre season, mid season, post season IT LITERALLY NEVER REALLY ENDS.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

If it were up to the Khaadis and Gul Ahmeds of our side of the world, we’d be walking around in trench coats made of lawn in winters even.

The Categorisation Doesn’t End at Seasons.

If you thought wrapping your mind across the idea of bundles of fabric being produced everyday for every kind of weather is hard enough, think again. Because they don’t end at that. This monstrosity comes guised in the form of Cambric, cotton net, cotton silk and the evergreen LAWN.

Source: Tumblr

They’re Discriminating

Chauvinism at its bloody best. These lawn giants rarely ever have anything in store for the poor souls mostly paying for their wives’ lawn cravings. Looming around like zombies, it’s not uncommon to see men either leaning against walls with 27 shopping bags in one arm and 31 in the other, or pacing back and forth in front of the shop carrying a crying infant while their wives loot their bank accounts.

Source: Tumblr

They’re Ridiculously Overpriced

Somehow it’s perfectly alright to spend PKR 8,000 on an UNSTITCHED piece of lawn (whose life span is a little over one 2 washes) which would get stitched in another PKR 2,000 by your Darzi provided he stitches it right the first time. This isn’t a price hike by virtue of time alone, it’s a calculated bug introduced into your brains. Ok maybe it’s not as life threatening as it sounds (husband would beg to differ) but alarming nonetheless.

Source: Tumblr

You look like you came off a conveyor belt.

God created each one of you with a UNIQUE fingerprint yet you fail to so much as even dress yourself up uniquely.

Any idea why Benazir Bhutto, Noor Jahan or Farah Pahlavi of Iran were such timeless beauties? They had an individual sense of style which certainly didn’t involve digital prints and three-piece embroidered jorras.

Mass production and cheap replicas of lawn prints result in every 5 of 10 women in Pakistan wearing the same jorras and if it weren’t for your face nobody, would be able to tell you apart from the 36758 other women wearing the exact same dress.

Source: Nationalgeographic

Digital Prints

Since when did your favourite desktop wallpapers legitimately turn into clothing pieces? If the latest fashion trend is to be followed, digital prints are all the rage on every material you can possibly think of. If you think whimsical butterflies, flowers, birdcages and paintings of venice have taken over your vision, know this, you’re not hallucinating. Our lawn companies know how to make a girl feel girlier and what’s girlier than butterflies fluttering in birdcages adorned with flowers somewhere in Venice?

Source: Tumblr

They make you look like a box.

Ranging from toothpick-sized to deep-fried paratha-sized, all the sizes somehow make you look like a mobile quadrilateral which anything but accentuates your body.

Source: Misstiktik

They are a guy’s worst nightmare and a mother’s dream come true.

Not a long-term investment.

The material is flimsy and usually lasts a season. Tops. That too if you don’t wash it ever and instead choose to slather your armpits with anti-perspirant. You invest thousands every season only to repeat the cycle every year. Not that shopping for anything else is any different but remember those good ol’ times where we used to have keepsakes and prized possessions? Items of clothing we refused to give up no matter how many towns we moved to? That concept is lost somewhere thanks to the absolute lunacy synonymous with lawn in Pakistan.

Source: Favim

Paste 5 flowers made out of thread and voila! It’s “EVENING WEAR.”

The recipe to make an average lawn ka jorra into evening wear that you probably won’t ever actually “wear” to an “evening” is by adding 5 layers of pointless, gaudy lace.

Source: Tumblr

They expect you to wear a shirt without a pair of pants.

You think after spending PKR 7,000 on a shirt you’d be able to wear it in a snap without wasting 3 hours of your life deciding how to turn it into a full-fledged outfit? Sorry to burst your bubble. You’ll still need to dig your closet for an old chiffon dupatta and a pair of neutral tights you bought for godforsaken times like these.

Source: Blogspot

It’s LIFE THREATENING!

The stampedes witnessed at stores nationwide the moment a new “volume” is released is insanity at its best. If you want to hold on to dear life and live long enough to wear the lawn you’re crushing on, you probably need to stay home the first week and pray for the poor aunties stuck in the interminable queues.

Source: Dhatoday

To wrap it up, one last confession: The reason behind this particular rant is that I’m broke AF and I spent my entire summers confined inside my home in my pyjamas just so I didn’t have to go out and have human interaction without donning designer lawn like normal people. Life as it is.

JK.

Or maybe not?