Lawn wars: J. Lawn, both hot and cold

Although the line is spectacular, the weak turnout shows that customers are not yet ready for lawn.

KARACHI:

Junaid Jamshed was the first designer to showcase his summer lawn collection at the exhibition held at The Palm near Sea View on Thursday. The display will continue till January 29.

The collection

J Lawn 2012 with 55 designs in total, mostly comprises of geometrical designs as well as minimalistic, single prints (single colourway). The wide spectrum of colours, dupattas, offered in both chiffon and cotton, and embroidered borders replete with lace, made customers reminiscent of the work of lawn pioneers Sana Safinaz. A few believed that some designs from J Lawn’s 2012 collection were very similar to the designs displayed last year and seemed too inspired by Yahsir Waheed’s signature lawn collection 2011.

In order to cater to the fast changing requirements of customers, J Lawn has been divided in stitched and unstitched sub-collections.  The unstitched variety falls in the price bracket of Rs2,485 to Rs5,185, while the stitched ones, available in different sizes, have an added cost of Rs1,500 to Rs2,000.

Coping with competition

Junaid Jamshed lawn collection has stepped away from its signature style this time by offering extravagantly detailed embroidered sleeves and necklines. Regional Manager for J Lawn, Bilal Akram stated, “The clothing market is getting more competitive by the minute. The concept of lawn has changed completely and it’s no longer simply daywear. The prerequisite for summer is a multipurpose fabric, as women don it when they are going for shopping as well as when attending formal dinners.”

Right collection at the wrong time

The Palm — that was scantily occupied with only approximately 40 people — showed a tepid response to a collection that deserved so much more. Madiha Ali, a potential buyer said, “It feels like it’s still winter time and the thought of summers hasn’t settled in yet.”

Such half-hearted feedback makes one why the brand decided to have show case their collection so early in the year. “Keeping the weather of Karachi in mind, we assumed that winter is at its tail end. Besides we wanted to be the first one to show our collection,” said Akram.

He added that the line was scheduled to come out even earlier and would have if gas problems hadn’t hindered production. “Our production suffered a bit due to infrastructural problems which delayed our finished products by one month.”

With cash counters empty and the marketing personnel trying hard to cajole customers, one could see that currently the early launch was not working in favour of the brand. However, Customer Relations Manager for Junaid Jamshed, Jawad Tahir, refused to resign himself to the weak response and explained, “The turnout is actually really good but the customers can’t feel that a lot of people have come because the entire event is well organised and the chain of events is running smoothly.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2012.