Each season, Eszter Áron, founder of Budapest-based womenswear label Aeron, looks to a female artist that has inspired her. For Pre-Fall 2021, the designer was fascinated by the work of Hungarian-Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil, a pioneer in modern Indian art, who candidly captured life in the southern region of her ancestral home country, and died in Lahore, where she moved to in 1941, at the age of 28.
‘She used very abstract colours and very clean lines,' Áron explains of Sher-Gil's influence, which is reflected in a Pre-Fall 2021 collection, rich in burnt oranges, jewel tones, tan and camel. The label, which launched in 2012, incorporates idiosyncratic elements into each of its collections, including tailoring, leather, and an interplay between masculine and feminine silhouettes. These are reflected in oversized suiting, shawl detail trenchcoats, diaphonous silk dresses that reveal slivers of skin and painterly floral shirts inspired by Indian ink artworks.
Aeron: Interweaving Hungarian heritage and Indian art
Above, a sign marks the entrance to Aeron's studio. Below, pattern cutting in the brand's Budapest atelier
Women a little closer to her home of Budapest are also of enduring influence to Áron. She comes from a long line of tailors and fabric merchants. ‘I've been around fashion from a very young age,' she says. ‘My mother had a textiles trade business.' This lineage translates into a high regard for fabrics of exceptional quality and artisanal production and Aeron has its own atelier inside its Budapest headquarters. Here, Hungarian traditions are upheld and translated into contemporary designs, including time consuming hand-smocking. The brand is also expanding its accessories line, which for Pre-Fall 2021, include slouchy, knot-detail bags, thanks in part to an investment from Vanguards, the investment group co-founded by Peter Baldaszti, who is also CEO of conscious men's and women's Hungarian label Nanushka.
‘Each season brings new personalities and stories to the label,' Áron says. The next chapter is sure to be a page-turner.
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