The two designers share thoughts on how their collaboration came about to the many similarities in their design processes and ideologies
When Aneeth Arora showcased the label Péro’s pieces at a Parisienne showroom last year, little did she know that it would result in a collaborative collection with American designer Jonathan Cohen. Now, looking at the final product of this association—a limited edition of upcycled denim jackets—it is surprising how similar both Arora and Cohen are when it comes to their designs and prints. Both are inspired by nature and heavily feature florals in their collections—Cohen as prints and Arora in the form of embroidery and mixed media patchwork details. To understand the genesis of their coming together, we got a lowdown from Arora and Cohen on everything from finding inspiration in each other’s designs to using dead-stock denim for this collection.
An unexpected collaboration
When Jonathan Cohen first announced this collaboration with Péro on Instagram earlier this month, the post received a flurry of comments with words like ‘obsessed’ and ‘stunning.’ It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the two designers met several times to create a collection that amalgamated Cohen and Arora’s design sensibilities. However, that wasn’t the case.
“You’ll be surprised to know that I’ve not even met Jonathan,” says Arora. For the past decade, Arora has been showcasing her collections at Tranoï, a trade show in Paris that takes place at the same time as the Paris Fashion Week. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “Since the pandemic, instead of showcasing our collection at Tranoï, we’ve been renting out a showroom in Marais, and happened to share the showroom with Jonathan.” That’s when the New York-based designer discovered Péro. “We were introduced to Péro through a store we were mutually carried at. Since then we kept in touch and developed a friendship and deep respect for each other’s work. It was natural to collaborate,” says Cohen, who came into the limelight after dressing up the United States of America’s first lady, Dr. Jill Biden, on the eve of her husband’s (Joe Biden) induction in 2021.
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"What I love about Péro is how they take embroideries into unexpected ‘casual’ shapes and fabrics. This is why we decided to embroider the designs onto our denim jackets,” says Jonathan Cohen
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“Every season, we display a collection of ten limited-edition jackets. Jonathan happened to see those in Paris and that’s when the idea of using his prints came about, which we could render into embroideries for our denim jackets,” explains Aneeth Arora
“Jonathan noticed that just like his designs, we too did a lot of florals and embroideries, inspired by nature,” says Arora. He got in touch with Arora’s distributor for a possible collaboration. “Every season, we display a collection of ten limited-edition jackets. Jonathan happened to see those in Paris and that’s when the idea of using his prints came about, which we could render into embroideries for our denim jackets,” explains Arora.
This stemmed into a one-of-a-kind collection of denim jackets that blended Cohen’s floral prints from his Spring/Summer 2023 collection with Arora’s knack for patchwork and embroidery. Each piece is meticulously hand-painted and hand-embroidered on deadstock denim sourced from Italy.
“What I noticed is how painterly their prints were; they make them look like they are hand-painted, which are then digitally printed on the fabrics. We tried to take the same sensibility forward with our embroideries. For example, that particular season [Spring/Summer 2023] they were doing prints like melting dots and melting flowers, so we translated those on the fabric in the form of embroidery to give that same effect,” explains Arora .
“WHEN YOU KNOW THAT A PIECE OF CLOTHING DOESN’T AGE WITH TIME AND TRENDS, THAT’S WHEN PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO DISCARD IT FOR YEARS, MAYBE EVEN PASSING IT DOWN FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER OR SHARING IT WITH FRIENDS”
Aneeth Arora
Péro’s Instagram page captures the behind-the-scenes process of making these jackets, including the one with exploding daisies which is spray-painted to give the illusion of them exploding, or patches of fabrics that are stuffed and bloated to make them look like puffy, overgrown balloons and flowers. Playing around with mixed media is Arora’s forte, seen in her previous collections and, according to Arora, that’s what attracted Cohen towards her designs.
“We were given a 2D surface and we rendered it into 3D by trying out different techniques to see what would do justice to represent Jonathan’s prints in their best form. We used our learnings from our previous collections,” says Arora.
For Cohen, this collaboration came with the amount of trust he had in Arora and her team. “I believe when you collaborate with someone, you must trust one another for it to be successful. We started by looking at prints in our Spring/Summer 23 collection and then discussing how we could translate them into Péro’s signature embroidery techniques. What I love about Péro is how they take embroideries into unexpected ‘casual’ shapes and fabrics. This is why we decided to embroider the designs onto our denim jackets,” he shares.
Thinking sustainably
Sustainability has always been at the heart of Péro’scollections, even before the word became trendy. Arora has made it her mission to not just create mindful collections using handcrafted textiles but also by using deadstock or waste fabrics as patchwork and embroidery or even as rag dolls for kids. Sustainability, for her, is an ideology that she implements at every step in the making of her collections.
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“We were given a 2D surface and we rendered it into 3D by trying out different techniques to see what would do justice to represent Jonathan’s prints in their best form," says Arora
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Some of the jackets have spray-painted daisies to give the illusion of them exploding
“What we do at Péro is timeless. When you know that a piece of clothing doesn’t age with time and trends, that’s when people don’t want to discard it for years, maybe even passing it down from one generation to another or sharing it with friends. It becomes like an heirloom piece. We want to make things that people can cherish for life and that’s what this collection, too, is all about,” she says. But for Arora, sustainability is also about consistency—consistency in empowering local artisans and their craft. “If you’re working with local craftspeople, you have to question how you can engage with them and how they can continue doing what they are good at. For me, that’s the larger idea of sustainability,” she says. Cohen, too, runs his business with the same ideology. “For us, it’s always been about taking responsibility for what we produce,” he says.
The next big thing
Alongside working with Cohen on this collection of denim jackets, Arora has her hands full with Péro’s Autumn/Winter 2023 collection. “We have finished working on the collection and the pieces have gone for trade shows in New York, Paris and Milan. We’ve also started working on next year’s Spring/Summer collection because we like to make our own textiles in advance, the research and groundwork for which is already in progress,” she says. Moreover, Péro’s recent foray into home décor has also got Arora busy on their second collection, which is set to launch in September this year.
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