Ladies go loony for Elan lawn

Women go frantic at the launch in Lahore.

LAHORE:

Stampede! That is one word that describes the Elan Lawn launch in Lahore on March 13 best. The much-awaited exhibition, quite literally took the city by storm — traffic choked all around the venue, Mall 1 on Main Boulevard, and women frantically ran around to grab hold of their desired outfits. It was quite disturbing to see grown women shoving, pushing and screaming just to get a lawn suit.

With a very harassed Khadijah Shah — the designer behind leading luxury fashion brand Elan — trying to make sense of what was happening, the collection was sold out within the first half hour of the launch.

“Last year’s debut into lawn was fantastic for Elan,” says Khadijah Shah who has collaborated with Hussain Mills Ltd for the lawn collection. “It was 2012’s sell out response that prompted us to go bigger this year with a new textile collaborator, more prints and diversity.”

Regardless of how chaotic and disappointing the launch was, Elan Lawn is by far one of the best to have hit the market. It has introduced 15 prints in two colour ways each with a colour palate on trend for the season. With a variety of hues such as lush greens, aqua blues, berry pinks and sunshine yellows, the prints stood out because of the intricate detail and print upon print to create a multi-tiered dimension.

The designer’s inspiration comes from a diversity of local and international influences with an underlying theme based in the dominant use of bright bold colours and an abundance of intermixing patterns. The dupatta, shirt and bottom all bear different patterns and yet they create a synonymous harmony that is conceptually strong and aesthetically pleasing. The prints are based on floral, geometric, oriental, Turkic and Indian motifs making the collection abundantly versatile and offering something for everyone.

Havoc

It is true that the venue of the exhibit was not conducive to host more than a 100 people but the lack of management and crowd control really allowed for mayhem to strike. As more and more women poured in, the hormone levels at the venue went skyrocketing and making friends and family wearing Elan Lawn worry that people might just rip the clothes off of their backs.

While everything was in its place, as far as the quality of the fabric and prints was concerned, the attitude of the women of Lahore killed the excitement of the entire event. With the management fearing they might get their arms ripped off in the process, one wonders where those poise, calm and collected women went — seems like they went right back to the Stone Age.

In Karachi, the exhibition was scheduled to take place at The Palm on March 14. Let’s wait and see if Karachiites welcome this Lahori designer with such excitement and zeal too.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2013.                

Like Life & Style on Facebook for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.