The season of spring holds a variety of significance to a great variety of people.

To some, such as our earnest gardeners or ‘maalis’, it means rejuvenating our domestic gardens with the choicest selection of petunias that they can find. To others, it may be associated with the much awaited time period for countless festivals (such as the recently held Lahore Eat), or maybe just an adequate reason to visit a superstore and purchase a sufficient amount of strawberries to appease your seasonal taste buds.

But to a distinct group of people, namely the womenfolk, the term ‘spring’ literally runs parallel to the mania humbly coined as ‘Lawn season’.

I assume most of the readers have a slight smirk creeping up their face right now. Yes, this is the very mania that you see exuberating all across the social media under headings such as "Spring/Summer Collection, Volume 1," so and so’s "signature", "capsule" or "limited collection", ingeniously advertised through popular brand faces otherwise known as the up-and-coming celebrities of this generation, casually posing against a busy street set in Morocco or masquerading the shores of a lavish luxury hotel in Dubai, all in all silently winking at you, the targeted clientele, and telling you, "This could be you. This silk dupatta draped over my slender shoulders and this heavily embroidered shirt could be yours, for a cool Rs6,500."

And before you know it, you have already succumbed to the trap that the people who run this business would call (hash-tag) strategic marketing.

Now before someone decides to toss this article aside and re-assure themselves (or their working-hard-to-earn-a-living husbands in some cases) that falling for this trap is most certainly worth it, let me weigh in my opinion on this.

Firstly, I would like clarify and say that I am no anti-shopping cynic who is encouraging others to stop buying from these mainstream design houses, neither would I go on to state that I have never purchased a lawn suit for myself either. The thing I’m actually trying to say is, ‘Is it all really worth it in the end?’

Is it really that important to stand in line for hours and hours in order to purchase something that, without a doubt, will be donned by countless other women simultaneously? Is it really that necessary to participate in a ferocious tug of war over the last three-piece suit left, marooning ethical characteristics such as self-worth and dignity in the process, as your avid spectators document and upload your theatrics on Snapchat.

Is this investment of your time and money really worth the trouble when you have silently acknowledged the fact that you will most certainly not recycle wearing this purchase next year as you could just not possibly walk into your child’s expensive private school and rub shoulders with your elitist social circle while they don the ‘new’ collection; save it for the in-house roaming you tell yourself, no one will see it there. This, ladies, is your dilemma right there, in all its raging glory.

Unfortunately, the current phenomenon of ‘fashion’ has become far too synonymous with price tags and labels. Gone are the days when a trip to Liberty or Shadman would suffice one’s hunt for decent fabric or a statement chikankari piece. Gone are the times when using your own aesthetic sense for creating new looks was considered an artistic achievement in its own way; why bother when you have overly priced designer labels to do that for you, right?

So, here’s to wishing everyone a happy ‘Lawn Season’! May the odds be ever in your favour and may your ‘pre-bookings’ for your favourite pieces not fail to serve you once again!