Lawn Lust

Its Summer ! What's more it's lawn season!

Excuse the enthusiasm. It is very very contrived.

There are women out there who breeze through the summer months.

All strappy sandals, shiny hair, impeccable pastel kurtas and floaty chiffon duppatas. To those ladies. All I can say is "Life is unfair and I do not like you."

I on the other hand, don't fare well in warmer weather. At all.

Outside artificially achieved tundra conditions I'm basically a bad tempered oil slick. Red faced, frizzy haired and ever armed with an arsenal of deodorizing products.

Summer makes me question the existence of things like pants and bras and this whole uncomfortable business of having a body in general .

Not to mention the fact that those same bodies, must for decency's sake be appropriately attired.

And the attire of choice, for most, is lawn.

About a decade or so back. There was a lawn renaissance of sorts.

Lawn as we know it got a makeover.

Those upstart three piece dastar-khwans declared pretensions to the throne of couture.

And you know what . They were a hit. Collections were pre-booked and sold out .

The occasional shoulder was dislocated in the vicious tug of war of the yearly lawn sales (truth) . Blow dried begums fought to the death .. OK I may be exaggerating now.

Anyway pretty much everyone who was anyone jumped on the bandwagon of would be disposable dastarkhwan designers.

For a while it was nice to have pre-packaged, pre-designed suits with all their bits and pieces included sold to me.

This year though. I've finally given up on lawn.

Partially because I am somewhat ghareeb but mostly because this party is now ridiculous.

All the big brand dastarkhwans look the same. Digital print extravaganzas of birdcages, unfortunately placed flowerpots, peacocks, asymmetrical trees and culturally appropriated tribal prints.

Because I am both slightly shallow and an impressionable idiot to boot. At one point, I may or may not have been guilty of poring over lawn catalogues, and lying in watchful ambush at the nearest Maria B outlet in fears of having my print of choice run out.

I've braved the summer sales and lusted after THE Asim Jofa suit of the season.

I've even bought a couple . But every time I've purchased an over priced lawn rag. I've been frankly daunted by the sheer extravagance of it.

To the point of being too intimidated to actually wear it.

Sure I'll throw it on for an hour or two while visiting but as soon as I come home. I will unerringly seek out the cheapest most ragged item of clothing I can find.

Given the fact that I consider my sweaty self inherently unworthy of wearing said dastarkhwans. I've decided to stop buying them.

Even though I've recently noticed a relatively fresh aesthetic amidst the haphazard jungle prints.

Subtle chikankari and pretty paisleys are finally making a comeback.

I think that we can all agree that the stuttering demise of the era of multicolored

Flower pots digitally superimposed on ones bottom , is unequivocally a good thing.

But despite the much needed breath of recycled air. I still can't bring myself to re-embrace the lawn lust.