We are still debating whether lawn and fashion go together but one thing is certain: fashion and prints will always run hand in hand. Internationally, fashion houses like Gucci, Fendi and Coach and hundreds others have iconic logo prints. Other fashion houses have developed signature prints that can be recognised from the moon.

Pucci prints will always be bold and exotic, Missoni is known for its closely woven zigzags and stripes. Yves Saint Laurent took inspiration from Mondrian Art for his famous graphical grid dress. Prints, in short, have always been integral to the identity of certain brands.

Likewise in Pakistan. Lawn mania ensures that prints remain in the limelight all through spring and summer, designer lawn being the latest craze. Designer lawns lend women the illusion of being closer to fashion. They cannot afford high-end couture or even ready-to-wear but most of the fashion conscious middle class can afford lawn.

That said, one feels that lawn prints are weaving their way away from fashion straight into the hands of commercialism. There are hardly any distinctly original prints and after some time, the sea of flora and fauna all appears the same.

Here are some prints that one would love to see in the ocean of lawn out there:

Animal prints Most of us wear animal skin prints, but that shouldn’t be the closest we get to our wild side. Leopard, cheetahs and snakes have been celebrated in prints ad nauseum and its high time animal figures were also sketched upon lawn for an additional art value.

The reason designers give for not developing animal prints are that many women believe that animal and/or figurative prints are not allowed by religion. One would have to say that most women feel the same way about sleeveless shirts but that does not stop designers from making them as fashion usually caters to a niche and not an entire population. The House of Kamiar Rokni, after all, did offer parrots, monkeys and turtles in their Folkistan collection. While geometrics and floral prints can be designed for the masses, someone should cater to the minority that wants to wear animals and figures. Lions, tigers, elephants and even snakes…it would be refreshing to wear the animal in you!

Maps and cityscapes Designers have devoted collections to cities; Maheen Khan has dedicated the Gulabo label to Karachi, Ammar Belal’s last collection was an ode to New York, whereas others have bestowed similar love on Lahore, Paris and Mumbai. Printmakers should also take this love for architecture a notch higher and develop architectural blue prints and cityscapes on lawn.

One remembers Yahsir Waheed experimented with cityscapes in his first collection a decade ago but it probably wasn’t commercially successful enough for him to continue. But if lawn is to be equated with fashion then some prints in every collection, at least, need to be more about style than sales. Beyond cityscapes, newsprints following socio-political crises of the moment would also be popular amongst the younger, more informed buyer. Let lawn feed them something more than an herbivorous diet.

Text and scripts And while we’re associating fashion with the literati, one feels that prints celebrating different texts and scripts would be immensely popular amongst the fashionable. Many Bengali artists have developed screen prints of scrolls; local designers have adapted Persian poetry and calligraphy on couture collections. Maheen Khan has created an alif-bay-pay Urdu alphabet print for Gulabo kurtas and one cannot forget a very interesting Google-print sari artist Nimra Buchcha wore to the Lux Style Awards last year.

While one would most definitely stay away from Arabic to avoid even the slightest suggestion of being blasphemous, any other language is most welcome in lawn. English, Urdu, Sanskrit, Thai, Hebrew, Chinese…let your lawn say much more than you ever can!

Solid and self-indulgent Flowers, sprigs and even paisleys really do need a strong weeding out of lawn as they’re choking out every last bit of creativity. Now that spring-summer trends are very focussed on solid colours — especially tangerine and coral shades of orange — it would have been nice for someone to have offered self prints giving the illusion of solid colours. A simple, yet effective and elegant idea.

In a nutshell, prints on the offing these days are all blending into blahness. They are not artistic and many are not even aesthetic. They need to be taken to the next level, especially if lawn wants to share the mantle with fashion. Mughal miniatures, ancient art paintings, famous artworks of Pakistan and other themes that designers have experimented with in fashion should be introduced to lawn. It really is time to raise the bar for lawn prints in Pakistan!

— Aamna Haider Isani