Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
A Bahrain-based resident is giving the gift of laughter to fashion lovers across the kingdom with an array of humorous hoodies and rib-tickling tops.
Pun Love BH was born during the pandemic when South Korean Chrissy Kim, a provider of virtual assistant services in the kingdom, wanted to brighten up days working at home with comfy lounge wear that said something.
“The idea came about because of the prolonged working from home period,” said Chrissy the co-CEO of Kim Admin Solutions. “We no longer needed to wear formal clothes and instead started wearing casual lounge wear.
“Although I spotted fashionable hoodies and sweatshirts with fun prints on them online, there were none with embroidery or puns!
“One needs to find a chuckle here and there to keep the spirit up during this Covid-19 pandemic. That’s how the concept of ‘punny’ casual wear started and I hope to position the brand as a ‘unique conversation starter’ casual wear.”
She then set out to create a collection of puns she could be proud of and people would be pleased to wear. She said: “I have a little book of puns whenever inspiration hits and, who knows, maybe I will publish a little booklet of puns in the future! Once your brain is on pun-mode, it’s a little difficult to get puns out of your head.”
Her first collection was created last year for Christmas featuring puns such as ‘Santa Paws’ and ‘Santa Claws’, ‘Hap-Pea Holidays’ and ‘Have a Berry Christmas’.
“I was delighted at the success of the first collection,” she added. “I even had customers in London, during the pandemic, wearing the lovely hoodies in time for the festive season.”
The 2021 collection consists of six designs – ‘You Mocha Me Crazy’, ‘Peas On Earth’, ‘You’re One In A Melon’, ‘Karak-Oke’, ‘Donut Worry’ and ‘We Make A Nice Pear’.
St Valentine’s Day on Sunday was celebrated with a limited edition featuring sweet puns such as ‘Fancy a Date’ with an image of a male date giving a palm leaf as a bouquet of flowers to the female date.
As the weather gets warmer, she aims to add cotton T-shirts to the mix alongside the popular fleece-lined embroidered unisex hoodies.
All the embroidery artwork is hand drawn by an artistic friend, who wished to remain anonymous, and then transferred as an embroidered design to be hand-stitched by tailors.
“I can proudly say that our brand is 100 percent #Made in Bahrain, including the concept, design and tags, select hoodies and sweatshirts and, of course, the entire production,” the Amwaj Islands resident explained.
“Our next summer collection designs will feature more Bahrain-related puns and artwork. In ‘Karak-Oke’ and the Valentine’s designs, I have included what I believe is ‘Bahrain’. For example, one of the upcoming designs will feature a hammour as an ‘I Ha-amour you’ pun.”
Chrissy is also planning on offering greeting cards using her fashion-wear designs.
“I’m also thinking of creating children’s clothing and matching family sets,” she added. “I am keen to collaborate with individuals or organisations for a good cause as well and also to support charities by designing special artworks and puns. A while ago, we read an article of a resident in Bahrain raising awareness for marine life. As an example, we’d love to create a pun for that project to help raise awareness!”
Follow @pun.love.bh on Instagram for more details.
