Fashion, at its best, feels a little like being a child let loose in a dressing-up box. There are no rules to follow, no particular version of oneself to commit to, and certainly no reason to stick to pink just because Barbie is involved. That was the spirit that designer Aneeth Arora brought to the opening night of Lakmé Fashion Week in partnership with FDCI, where péro unveiled Dream Dress-Up, its Spring Summer 2027 collection and global collaboration with Barbie.
The week had already begun with Kering bringing their Generation Award to India and the Circular Design Challenge, but it was péro that set the tone for the opening showcase at New Delhi’s Taj Palace on October 14.
Presented by Lakmé and Tira, the show brought together fashion, beauty and nostalgia, with Barbie serving as a starting point for a much bigger conversation about identity, imagination and the freedom to dress as one pleases.
For Arora, founder and creative director of péro, the collaboration was never simply about translating Barbie’s signature aesthetic into clothes. A day before the show, in the middle of many, many fittings, she sits down with The Hollywood Reporter India, explaining how her latest collection came into being.
“When Barbie came to us, the first thought was that we would make it all pink because it's not a colour that is central to péro,” she started. But a closer look at Barbie’s evolution since 1959 opened up a world of possibilities. Instead of recreating something that already existed in the doll’s wardrobe, Arora approached the project as a child might approach a box of Barbie clothes: collecting, combining and experimenting without a second thought.
“We just thought, like a child who just opens up Barbie's box and starts collecting whatever the way the child wants, we achieved that childlike approach and just designed a péro wardrobe for Barbie,” she said.
The result was Dream Dress-Up, a collection that feels less like a conventional collaboration and more like an invitation to play. Relaxed silhouettes, playful prints, crochet, lace, bows and intricate handcrafted details came together through péro’s familiar language of layering. Pink appeared, naturally, but it was not allowed to dictate the mood. Instead, it became one colour among many in a wardrobe that moved between softness and strength, femininity and masculinity, and the familiar and the unexpected.
That refusal to be boxed in is particularly fitting for Barbie, whose world has expanded over the decades to include different skin tones, body types and professions. Arora sees that evolution as part of the appeal.
“There's a doctor Barbie, there's a lawyer Barbie,” she said, pointing to how the doll’s changing identities offer young girls different possibilities to imagine for themselves. For péro, the challenge was to create a wardrobe that could speak to those different lives without losing its own identity.
And that identity is precisely what makes péro recognisable. In a fashion landscape that often demands something new every season, Arora is refreshingly unconcerned with reinvention for reinvention’s sake. “The key is that we don't try to make it different every time,” she said. Details such as the brand’s signature French knots have become familiar markers, carried forward rather than discarded in pursuit of the next trend. “We can be new in many different ways, but we do stick to our basic classics.”
It is a philosophy that gives Dream Dress-Up its grounding. Beneath the playful premise is a collection built around the idea that clothes should accommodate the person wearing them, not prescribe who that person ought to be. Arora pointed to the diverse people who have connected with péro over its 17-year journey, from photographers such as Dayanita Singh to writer Arundhati Roy, each bringing their own sensibility to the clothes.
Beauty, too, had a part to play in the evening’s narrative. Lakmé brought its Hya Glam range to the runway, while Tira approached beauty as another avenue for experimentation.
Ultimately, Dream Dress-Up is less about Barbie as an icon and more about what she represents: the freedom to imagine different versions of oneself.
The péro × Barbie Dream Dress-Up collection is scheduled for a worldwide release in Spring 2027. For now, it has offered Lakmé Fashion Week an opening-night reminder that fashion can be serious about craft without taking itself too seriously — and that sometimes, the best way forward is to dress up and play.