The end of winter and start of spring can mean a lot of things in different societies and places; but in Pakistan, it predominantly means the start of lawn season. Even before the weather begins to get slightly warmer; streets, billboards, magazines, television screens and social media starts getting covered with designer lawn commercials and advertisements. Months before one can actually start to comfortably shift from winter wear; we are fed campaigns after campaigns for what we should be wearing in spring/summer. Campaigns featuring thin, fair models wearing three-piece lawn suits in exotic locations like Prague, Europe, Africa and Sri Lanka. Which always makes me wonder, why do all these women look the same and what woman would want to wear a three-piece lawn suit on the streets of Venice? It sounds like a very trivial issue to someone who hasn’t been exposed to this part of the society; but if you’re living in a city like Lahore and your city is covered with gigantic hoardings of just designer lawn ads, then you realise how big of a phenomenon it has become. What started as a summer endeavour by a couple of designers, almost a decade ago; is now a money-minting machine backed by almost any/every designer in the country and for credit where it’s due, almost all of them are doing it rather successfully. With top-notch designers, overwhelming campaigns and insane amounts of advertising; women are almost brainwashed into believing that luxury lawn is something they cannot survive their summers without. Many economists believe that women are the easiest targets for selling products to and this whole lawn phenomenon is proving the economists quite right. Pre-ordering weeks in advance, standing in lines for hours and even getting into actual physical fights for lawn has become a norm of its own. Campaigns featuring thin, fair models wearing three-piece lawn suits in exotic locations like Prague, Vienna, Cairo and Colombo always makes me wonder, why do all these women look the same and what woman would want to wear a three-piece lawn suit on the streets of Venice? While yes, it’s a great boost to the economy of Pakistan and most of these designers and textile houses are paying good taxes to the government. It’s also kind of fun to just experience this entire frenzy the women get into during peak lawn seasons. However, it doesn’t actually do much for the women of Pakistan; I mean, yes their looking great, but I also feel like they’re drowning more and more into the obsession of branding and labels. It’s no more about looking or feeling good, it’s now a rat-race for who wears what before the other, how many designer pieces does one own. I personally know women who feel the urge to wear designer lawn even on the chilliest winter nights, just so they can wear it before anyone else. This battle of the best lawn isn’t just looting women of their and their husbands’ hard-earned money, but also infesting the society with blatant elitism and the pressure to look, weigh and live a certain way. The writer can be reached at hundalhussain@live.com Published in Daily Times, February 22nd 2019.