The world of homegrown fashion label pero has always been received with love; so much so that the brand’s social media handle itself reads @ilovepero. Over the years, that love has evolved into something far more fervent, almost cult-like, fueled by a community that doesn’t just consume the brand, but participates in it. This following stems from the forethought that goes into perfecting each aspect of the pero universe: clothing, storytelling, set design, sound, and most importantly, experience. At their first Lakmé Fashion Week grand finale, that universe began revealing itself even before one stepped into the Pavilion. A copy room had been brought in; a detail that felt curious at first, almost out of place at a fashion show, especially a pero show - until it suddenly wasn’t.
I had dreamt of attending a pero show ever since seeing their Mad Hatter’s tea party-esque presentation in 2023 at Lakme Fashion Week. Three years later, finally being there in person felt less like attending a show and more like stepping into a world I had already visited in my head. None in attendance were simply invited; you were inducted. Entry passes came designed like office memos, each attendee was assigned a pero name tag, and the press kit was not just informative but tactile: fabric-covered binders, miniature knitted pencil charms, objects that appealed to one’s many senses.
Unlike usual shows, when the attendees walked in, the models were already seated on office chairs, dangling off them like they were ready to be ‘Out Of Office’ already. Even before the first model walked, the line between audience and participant had dissipated.
From Riviera to Board Room with pero's Out Of Office collection
In closing the Lakmé Fashion Week 2026 in Mumbai with its Fall/Winter collection, Out of Office, the premise set by pero was deceptively simple: an office-like setup - desks, chairs, paperwork and calculators, pencils, agendas. But nothing is really what it seems like in the world of pero. The collection itself was built around a feeling most of us know all too well; the quiet, persistent longing to escape routine. The act of sitting through a workday while mentally already elsewhere: imagining travel, departure, and a break from monotony. Dressing, even, for that imagined elsewhere.
Visually, the garments remained rooted in péro’s signature language. Handcrafted textiles sourced from clusters like Maheshwari, Chanderi, Varanasi, and Kashmir came together in loose, anti-fit silhouettes - jackets, shirts, dresses, layered separates - rendered largely in a restrained blue-and-white palette. But within that restraint lay complexity: tie-dye, checks, stripes, intricate handwork that revealed itself slowly, rewarding attention.
In many ways, the clothes echoed the show itself, revealing detail gradually. Speaking to Aneeth Arora after the show, she described how this idea of “Out of Office” had been quietly forming long before it was named. The textiles themselves had begun two years ago, rooted in a blue-and-white palette inspired by stripes she noticed appearing both on holiday and in work settings. “They’re so versatile,” she said, “they can take you from Riviera to office.”
"When you think of the office, it’s very rule-bound, very structured; often mundane. But “out of office” feeling is very Pero - there’s nostalgia, there’s freedom, there’s happiness, there’s joy. It felt like the perfect way to bring those two ideas together, and that’s how the whole “out of office” concept came about. Where it began was rooted in office dressing, with pinstripes. But when Pero approached it, it was always about alternative office dressing; not the usual, predictable coordinates or the kind of clothing we’ve come to associate with the workplace."Aneeth Arora, Founder/Designer, pero
That duality - of structure and escape - became the foundation. Where a traditional interpretation of office dressing might lean into rigidity, pero approached it with rebellion. Oversized T-shirts paired with voluminous skirts, anti-fit tailoring, softened structures; all working to dismantle the very idea of what “office wear” is meant to look like. “We were trying to break all possible rules of office dressing,” Aneeth shared, “yet sticking to that restrained palette.” And then came the details.
A runway of pop-art and soundscapes
If you looked closely - and pero always rewards those who do - the accessories told their own story. Lanyards, ID cards, calculators, pencils; the banal objects of everyday office life, transformed. Some shrunk into miniature charms, others blown up into exaggerated, almost surreal forms - pencils as backpacks, calculators as bags. There was something distinctly childlike in this approach, a refusal to accept scale or function as fixed.
“It was almost like pop art,” Aneeth noted, describing how the team began to play only after the serious work of building the collection was done. That sense of play extended far beyond the garments.
What transformed Out of Office into something far more immersive was the way it was experienced. The soundscape, conceptualised by long-time collaborator Stefan Kaye, became the spine of the presentation. Their collaboration, now a decade long, began with a classroom setup in 2016, where music was created using rulers and desks. Ten years later, that classroom had evolved into an office; a grown-up version of chaos.
Stefan describes the challenge of translating this environment into sound as one of capturing both monotony and anticipation. The composition began with a cyclical, almost hypnotic structure inspired by minimalist composers and gamelan rhythms, reflecting the repetitive nature of office work. Layers of sound built gradually: keyboards mimicking mallet instruments, mechanical noises forming percussive patterns. The unexpected aspect was how actual office objects were brought into the score - typewriters, phone rings, bells. But they weren’t used arbitrarily. In one of the most striking decisions, vintage typewriters were played live by classical tabla musicians, transforming mechanical clatter into intricate polyrhythms. It was precise, controlled chaos.
Yet, as Stefan Kaye noted, the piece couldn’t remain purely mechanical. Office life, after all, is not just repetition; it is also human connection. To balance the rigidity, he introduced a string quartet, allowing something organic to move through the system. And then, it grew from there.
"As the piece evolved, I realized the musical setup was becoming a little too mechanical sounding. Although a day in the office can be repetitive and a little dull at times, I felt it was absolutely necessary to capture the human element—that camaraderie between co-workers that makes office work more acceptable. Seeking a healthy, organic contrast to the percussive staccato of the typewriters and the cyclical keyboards, I thought back to a classical string quartet I had recently seen performing at a festival in Goa. I decided to bring them on board, allowing their strings to find their way into the corporate grind."Stefan Kaye, Musician/Composer, Stiff Kitten Inc.
The entire composition was structured as a crescendo, moving toward release. Because if the first half was about being in the office, the second had to embody leaving it. “That magical moment when the work is done,” Kaye writes, “the bags are packed, and the holiday begins.” The answer was samba. As Latin percussion took over, the shift was immediate and electric. What had been contained, cyclical, restrained, burst into joy.
Blurring the line between spectator and participant
Sitting there, whistle in hand, I could feel the room transform after the first round of models went inside the elevator at the beginning of the runway. After over 30 shows in a fashion week, this was the only one where you could see every single person fully lock in. No distracted glances, no drifting attention; just complete immersion. The whistles weren’t incidental; they were integral. You couldn’t not participate. The moment moment the music started to swell, and the movements direcetd by Gia Singh Arora started to ramp up, and the models walked out in the more travel inspired pieces, the crowd didn’t just react; they pulsated with joy and celebration, realising that we were ending things on a high-note. And that was by design.
For pero, the audience has never been separate from the work. “It is not only about creating clothes,” Aneeth told me, “it is about inviting people into our world… making them experience what we were experiencing while creating it.” From the memo-style invites to the lanyards to the whistles, every element worked toward collapsing the distance between viewer and spectacle. Everyone in that room became, in some way, part of Messrs pero Private Limited; employees for the duration of the show. “I feel the show was unraveling bit by bit,” Aneeth said, drawing a parallel to how people engage with pero clothing, discovering details slowly, piece by piece.
It’s perhaps this approach that held the room so completely. Sound, movement, clothing, objects, audience; all building on each other until the final release felt earned. And then, just as the music reached its peak and dissolved, the show ended. The designer didn’t walk out for a final bow, but the music swelled and the audience rose to their feet and the standing ovation that went on for minutes.
For a brand that has long believed in being “faceless,” the lack of that final bow felt more powerful than any presence could have been. The spectacle did not belong to one person. It belonged to the weavers across clusters, to the musicians crafting sound, to the performers embodying movement, to the team constructing the world; it almost even felt like the audience, with their energy, were deserving of the applause too. “It does not feel right for one person to come out and take a bow,” Aneeth said. “It is always greater than its parts.”
What pero managed to do with Out of Office was not just present a collection; it recreated a feeling with startling clarity. The monotony of routine, the anticipation of escape, the collective joy of release. It tapped into something deeply familiar, and elevated it into something theatrical, almost euphoric.
It was immersive without being overwhelming, playful without losing rigour, conceptual without losing emotion. Most importantly, it was shared. In a fashion landscape that often treats shows as something to be consumed, pero reframed it as something to be inhabited. I didn’t leave remembering just what I saw; I left remembering how it felt. And days after after the whistles stopped, that feeling stayed has stayed with me. Because this was never just a show; th is was a pero spectacle that I was an active part of, and every person involved probably feels the same way too.
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