The Folly at Amethyst, Chennai: Where fashion turns into art

The Folly astatine Amethyst Chennai has a peculiarly chiseled quality.

Every clip a designer’s amusement takes spot astatine the venue, pop, comes a mannequin draped successful resplendent garb, welcoming visitors to locomotion into an experience. Much similar the deceptive scales of a chameleon, the engaged lawsuit abstraction transforms, reflecting the colours of ateliers who bring their wares to the metropolis from acold distant lands.

This week betwixt April 7 and 9, The Folly brims with agleam hula hoops, painted mirrors, creaky aged fans, a unit of crayons, hand-drawn stickers, and respective different knick-knacks, complementing Aneeth Arora’s newest postulation astatine Péro titled Doodles. Much similar the collection, The Folly transforms into a canvas, resembling the drafting notebook of a young child, portion holding onto finite structure, some successful presumption of covering and presentation.

Think rani pink, bursts of neon, herb red, electrical blue, and superior green, successful the forms of flowers, leaves, lines, stars, and butterflies.

Amethyst’s originative director, Adithi Dinakaran, says that 1 of the astir absorbing parts of her occupation impact pulling bits and pieces from the laminitis Kiran Rao’s expansive warehouse to lucifer their inventory to each brand’s requirement. This time, they person repainted cycles and fans, doodled connected gada cloth to marque playful lampshades, and brought bluish retention cartons from their cafe, to guarantee that the abstraction is arsenic agleam arsenic the collection.

“The Folly is simply a engaged abstraction truthful we get small clip to acceptable up. This is the lone challenge, but it is 1 that we bask taking connected arsenic a team. This existent postulation took america a week to enactment unneurotic from conceptualisation to finishing. It is the accustomed turnaround time. We emotion looking done inventory and bringing pieces from crossed the concatenation — from Chamiers, Coromandel cafe, Wishing Chair, and CMYK — to beryllium portion of these shows,” she says. They usage MDF, glue, stickers, hooks, paint, aged furniture, thing they tin laic their hands on, to guarantee that their imaginativeness is executed. Adithi mentions that adjacent the mannequins, for instance, were picked up from the roadside and fixed a caller lease of beingness with paint.

Adithi adds that rifling done Kiran Rao’s inventory, 1 that has been built implicit decades, tends to travel successful handy. Repurposing is the sanction of the game. It is possibly what brings respective students of manner to these exhibits. The amusement transforms into a acquisition connected ocular merchandising.

A amusement that cemented The Folly’s estimation arsenic a abstraction that reinvents itself was incidentally, different Péro collection: the Hello Kitty edit, that was displayed betwixt April 1 and 3 successful 2025. Kiran Rao says that implicit 1,000 dolls were sent crossed by Péro to beryllium portion of the collection. They had a tattoo zone, a children’s area, and funky way rooms that were dolled up. Literally. But this is besides existent of different shows by different brands similar Tablescape by Eeshaan, founded by Eeshaan Kashya; and Vikram Goyal’s furnishings collection, some of which received antithetic treatment.

“Inititally, The Folly was expected to beryllium part-bookstore, and part-event abstraction but the demands of the venue ensured that it remained an lawsuit space. I conscionable similar making intolerable things acceptable and enactment together. It’s similar dressing up a space, you know? Over time, the shows person go much fantastically elaborate. I deliberation that the changing rooms person benignant of taken each their beingness connected their own. It’s a situation each clip to bash a antithetic one,” she says, pointing to a afloat stickered impermanent proceedings country tucked successful the centre of The Folly.

Adithi says that it is the space’s pridefulness and joy, thing that goes from looking similar a tent, to 1 that has quirky frames and floral MDF cloth hangers.

What is the astir hard portion of this full exercise?

“It is erstwhile we person to instrumentality it each down. Three days is excessively small a clip for immoderate of these displays,” she says, smiling.

Amethyst presents Doodles, Péro’s Spring Summer 2026 postulation connected April 7, 8 and 9 from 11am to 7.30pm astatine The Folly, Whites Road, Royapettah.