THE ARCHIVIST

he 10-year evolution of péro can be traced through a button. When she was still a student and planning her first collection for a Gen Next show at Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2008, designer Aneeth Arora knew she wanted something very specific; it was a tiny, metal button she had seen on traditional kurtas from Sindh, Gujarat. Arora found a family of jewellery makers in her hometown of Udaipur and commissioned them to beat drops of molten brass and silver into the irregular bead-sized variety she had in mind. Since then, Arora has continued her exploration of the simple button, working with a range of materials and techniques. There are, Italian for ‘thousand flowers’, often used to make delicate, glass buttons that seem to be embedded with tiny blooms. A single péro collection can have as many as 10 different styles of buttons. But most importantly, Arora still works with the original craftspeople from Udaipur, and now provides the whole family with steady employment. “When you add someone to the chain, you have a responsibility to keep giving them work,” says Arora, as we chat in her brick and glass-walled studio in New Delhi.