As far as I can remember, shopping was something I did for my mother. She had a tightly woven idea of what an upright and proper woman of society should look, walk, talk like and well I always pretending I was in my mother finishing school for unruly girls and went along with it-

Lawn fever started when I was 14, Yahsir Waheed came to Islamabad at the Marriott and I remember what a damn novelty it was to wear designer lawn because these kinds of exhibitions were not for teenagers. The designer lawn was for proud fashionable cool working women of that time

I say this because it was not a trend to wear exclusive lawn back then. It was resisted and rejected. It was not a norm as hard as it to imagine that when we are engulfed in a sea of textile manufacturers pretending to be designers.

Khaadi used to have Object store merch, safety pin bracelets and necklaces. Pretty industrial for its time and the handwoven cloth available at that time I'm sad to say we will never see again. I still have that dupatta from my first Khaadi purchase because it was made to last

My 18th birthday was around the time Bonanza had Kamiar Rokni to make their lawn collection. This exhibition was at the novel supreme Marriott and I was excited because I was going to get to choose which design I wanted to wear from my favourite designer.

The collaboration that soon became between textile giants and designers soon became a hive of A-Class, B-Class, C-Class copies. Lawn soon started to become its own industry. The pressure of translating designer wear into mid-range lawn wear became a make or break it situation.

I remember Mausummery from when I was younger, no embroidery patches, no hassle, just block print inspired - clean geometry and quilted genius made lawn feel fresh and modern. As hard as it is to believe that now seeing lawn as morphed and mangled into a tacky monster ball