LAHORE – As summer is round the corner, various designers have started their exhibitions, displaying prints and colours for the season. But Arjumand Amin has stood out since last year and is definitely no backbencher when it comes to defining patterns and designs for her cloth materials.
Arjumand has studied fine art for her A-levels, and has experience in etching, lithographs, aquatints, dry point, wood cut in fact all the basics of actual printmaking. After doing her Bachelor’s in Politics and Sociology from Warwick University, she returned to her first love, printmaking. But instead of working as a print artist, she decided to get into lawns, especially as she comes from a textile family.
In fact Arjumand’s designs and patterns are significant of a fresh new look in lawn prints, and her collection has started off with some of the best prints to be displayed. Her exhibition starts on Monday, with a new collection for the Summer 2011, and the prints which have been a hit in 2010, and were sold out for the rest of the year.
She has aptly named her collection, Mahnoush, a Persian word for a person seeking beauty and perfection. And Arjumand’s lawn prints are quite elegant, showing the best of neutral colours, and sharp, sophisticated designs, and at the same time, there are several others that are trendy as well as being vibrant and colourful.
She uses 100 per cent Pima Cotton for her prints. The quality of the cloth therefore shows the clarity of her prints. In 2010, Arjumand experimented with Dobi cloth for pant material, and this year has used it again, this time for shirts to add texture to the print.
Arjumand’s 2010 Summer Collection was showcased with and appreciated very much by buyers, and many have expressed their excitement and interest in Arjumand’s exhibition starting on Monday. “I am hoping to get good feedback and response,” smiles Arjumand. “Because my last batch was completely sold out and I think this one will be liked too.”
Arjumand says that she does understated prints, and that is her style. “If the shirt is full, (basically if it has a lot of pattern on it – something I don’t usually go for), my dupatta and shalwar will be plain. But commonly I have dupattas that use a lot of print and I concentrate on borders.”
For example her shirt will be plain, but her border will have an intricately made design on it. Intricacy is perhaps Arjumand’s strong point, even though, her taste lies in simplicity, but when it comes to actually using designs and patterns, Arjumand’s designs are complex, yet not messy, and definitely tasteful.
“I go for flat bed prints,” she says. “That means my prints have running patterns but they are simplified and the concentration of any colours and design remain on the borders. At the same time, I try to use fewer colours together.”
Flatbed patterns are a change, because at present the market is replete with both fashion designers, and textile companies churning out an extremely ‘full’ look by having the shalwar, kameez and dupatta, all three, in print. Rotary printing, that is printing done by machines with repeated pattern, has been overly done. A fresh change was required since some time, and Arjumand has managed to bring this, through simple designs while she has the aesthetic sense to bring out and use negative space in clothes, something that many do not understand.
But she has also managed to incorporate something original and different in her work. “I have been secretly wanting to use bird motifs in my designs for a long time now,” she discloses. “I usually have them on dupattas, mixed in with a little colour, but not too many colours at the same time, because that gets messy. But bird motifs was a difficult choice because people had warned me about the idea failing badly,” she says.
“People don’t appreciate the fact that they are wearing animal or bird prints because of religious reasons.” But Arjumand went ahead anyway. His risky endeavour paid off as the beautiful and aesthetically pleasing designs that she had been inspired with and had incorporated into her clothing, were completely sold out last year and in fact people asked for more and more.
With her collection, Mahnoush, Arjumand says that she is going to maintain a personal style by retaining some leitmotifs from the first collection, such as Far Eastern influences, bejewelled necklaces, bird motifs and embellishments for the back. She says her philosophy says that design itself should be the strongest attribute, in printed fabrics, followed then by the colour palette.
“I am very inspired by Chinese, Indonesian and Turkish art influences. I love traveling and when I’m abroad I go to museums, pick up books and I try to understand and influence myself of their motifs. But all the patterns themselves are original, never copied. They are merely inspired.” Arjumand’s pick in colours, however remains somewhat part of what the summer clothing market usually comprises.
Reds, oranges, yellows, fuschia, and others shades of monsoon colours have been used left, right and centre because of popular demand. But it is the colour combination that shows the designer’s artistic sense. For instance, she never over does the number of colours.
“I try to mix as less of the colours as possible,” she says. “I don’t like to put in everything all together because it becomes overly done. Except with black and white, which is an immensely popular colour combination, I always mix one extra colour to lift it up and to not leave it so sober and conservative. That is my style.”
This year too, therefore, Arjumand has stuck to colourful themes. While her summer clothing is being bought by many, Arjumand wants at the moment to stay in this zone.
“Winter clothing will definitely come, but that requires a different frame of mind and a lot of fresh input,” she says. “I have been requested to bring it out, but personally I want to first make sure my name is known, and then preferably I will have a winter pr
