A store right in the front of Karachi’s Aashiana market is perpetually thronged by crowds. Women gather there, giving directions to the shopkeeper in loud, enthusiastic tones. Sometimes, they even have to wait in queue for their turn. It’s barely a shop — merely a kiosk set up against a wall of the building — and yet what it sells is highly coveted: masses and masses of counterfeit lawn suits.

The suits come in multiple variations; the luxe sets that are not very different from the original and even come packed in boxes copied off the original packaging; the middle-tier suits that are more economical and may miss out on some details like embroideries or silk finishings that are there in the original; and then the very affordable pedestrian versions replicating the prints, even copying out the embroidery into print versions and not bothered at all with quality fabric and finishings. There is a replica available for every economic strata, trickling down the expensive designer lawn aesthetic and doling it out at affordable rates to the mass market.

Within a week or less, coveted designer lawns are replicated to the tee and made available in small-scale lawn stores across the country. An original luxury lawn suit replete with embroideries and chiffon and silk finishing may be priced anywhere between 6,000 rupees and 10,000 rupees. Prices for the most substandard copycat suits begin at less than 1,000 rupees and can go up to about 5,000 rupees for the better versions.

Designer lawn business may be lucrative in the local fashion market but its flipside is the ever-persistent replica market

“They particularly make it a point to copy the suits that are a huge hit,” observes Zohaib Nagda, director at Al-Zohaib Textiles, a company that releases a spate of designer-created lawns throughout the year. “There are no proper laws that can actually stop them from replicating the suits and within a week, the suits are available all over the market.”

Lawn copycats are, in fact, so efficient that one recalls how, back in 2015, designer Faraz Manan’s lawn prints somehow got ‘leaked’ before their release and their copies were made available in the market on the same day as the original collection came out. At another point, Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor modelled lawn for Manan’s catalogue while her sister Karisma Kapoor was seen wearing the replicas of the same suits for an Indian brand that had decided to copy Manan’s prints.

Does business suffer as a result of these replicas? Designer Maria B., whose unstitched suits are some of the most copied, says that copies are a pitfall that one has to accept. “We have just realised that people who want to buy replica lawns will always buy them and that they are very different from our clients,” she says. “Our clients come to us for that particular quality and originality in design. They are unlikely to interact in the same circles as those that wear replicas and so it doesn’t usually make a difference to them if cheaper versions of their suits are frequenting the market.”

“Sometimes, though, a particular design becomes so popular that all stock gets sold out,” she adds. “Earlier, people would buy the replica version of it simply because the original was no longer available for them. Now, we announce that we will be restocking the popular designs. Customers wait for them and get the original.”

Designer Zara Shahjahan tries to discourage copycats by deliberately creating designs that are difficult to replicate. “I consciously work a lot with jacquard weaves and expensive embroidery because they are difficult to recreate. It takes months to create the jacquard fabric and the plagiarisers don’t have as much time.”

Yet another label that perpetually endures copycat prints is Sana Safinaz. The designer duo recall a time when copies were a huge hassle. “We bear the burden of not just manufacturing the suits but also of advertising the collection and the various overheads involved in bringing out the collection,” says Sana Hashwani. “In the initial years, our lawn would be distributed to retail stores and the fact that copies would soon be available in those very markets really harmed business. Now, though, our business model has changed. We operate through our own high street stores and make enough quantities for suits to be available for when we go on sale. The copies are still there but they don’t affect us the way they used to.”

On the other hand, the average lawn aficionado can get disgruntled when her treasured suit, purchased at a premium price begins to run rampant around the city in its many reproductions. “It takes away the novelty value of the suit,” admits a frequent customer. “By the time we get around to wearing the suit, the design has become commonplace because of the presence of lower-priced duplicates. Anyone who pays full price for a lawn outfit will set it aside for special occasions but the people wearing the cheaper replicas don’t have any such preferences.”

This has led to many women opting not to wear lawn. “What’s the point? It gets replicated instantly and the popular prints get too common,” says one woman.

And yet, while some may get disillusioned by it, there will always be a certain market for lawn. Designer Faraz Manan observes, “Lawn can get copied and become too common but there will always be women who love wearing it. Every year, we are taken aback by the traffic that we get online for pre-booking. And then, when a particular print gets sold out, multiple enquiries start coming in for it and all the women want it. There’s no denying its popularity.”

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 29th, 2018