The Folly at Amethyst Chennai has a particularly distinct quality.
Every time a designer’s show takes place at the venue, pop, comes a mannequin draped in resplendent garb, welcoming visitors to walk into an experience. Much like the deceptive scales of a chameleon, the busy event space transforms, reflecting the colours of ateliers who bring their wares to the city from far away lands.
This week between April 7 and 9, The Folly brims with bright hula hoops, painted mirrors, creaky old fans, a crew of crayons, hand-drawn stickers, and several other knick-knacks, complementing Aneeth Arora’s newest collection at Péro titled Doodles. Much like the collection, The Folly transforms into a canvas, resembling the drawing notebook of a young child, while holding onto finite structure, both in terms of clothing and presentation.
At Amethyst Chennai
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Special Arrangement
Think rani pink, bursts of neon, tomato red, electric blue, and primary green, in the forms of flowers, leaves, lines, stars, and butterflies.
Amethyst’s creative director, Adithi Dinakaran, says that one of the most interesting parts of her job involve pulling bits and pieces from the founder Kiran Rao’s expansive warehouse to match their inventory to each brand’s requirement. This time, they have repainted cycles and fans, doodled on gada cloth to make playful lampshades, and brought blue storage cartons from their cafe, to ensure that the space is as bright as the collection.
At Amethyst Chennai
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Special Arrangement
“The Folly is a busy space so we get little time to set up. This is the only challenge, but it is one that we enjoy taking on as a team. This current collection took us a week to put together from conceptualisation to finishing. It is the usual turnaround time. We love looking through inventory and bringing pieces from across the chain — from Chamiers, Coromandel cafe, Wishing Chair, and CMYK — to be part of these shows,” she says. They use MDF, glue, stickers, hooks, paint, old furniture, anything they can lay their hands on, to ensure that their vision is executed. Adithi mentions that even the mannequins, for instance, were picked up from the roadside and given a new lease of life with paint.
Adithi adds that rifling through Kiran Rao’s inventory, one that has been built over decades, tends to come in handy. Repurposing is the name of the game. It is perhaps what brings several students of fashion to these exhibits. The show transforms into a lesson on visual merchandising.
At Amethyst Chennai
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A show that cemented The Folly’s reputation as a space that reinvents itself was incidentally, another Péro collection: the Hello Kitty edit, that was displayed between April 1 and 3 in 2025. Kiran Rao says that over 1,000 dolls were sent across by Péro to be part of the collection. They had a tattoo zone, a children’s area, and funky trail rooms that were dolled up. Literally. But this is also true of other shows by other brands like Tablescape by Eeshaan, founded by Eeshaan Kashya; and Vikram Goyal’s furniture collection, both of which received different treatment.
“Inititally, The Folly was supposed to be part-bookstore, and part-event space but the demands of the venue ensured that it remained an event space. I just like making impossible things fit and work together. It’s like dressing up a space, you know? Over time, the shows have become more fantastically elaborate. I think that the changing rooms have kind of taken all their life on their own. It’s a challenge every time to do a different one,” she says, pointing to a fully stickered temporary trial room tucked in the centre of The Folly.
At Amethyst Chennai
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Special Arrangement
Adithi says that it is the space’s pride and joy, something that goes from looking like a tent, to one that has quirky frames and floral MDF cloth hangers.
At Amethyst Chennai
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
What is the most difficult part of this entire exercise?
“It is when we have to take it all down. Three days is too little a time for some of these displays,” she says, smiling.
Amethyst presents Doodles, Péro’s Spring Summer 2026 collection on April 7, 8 and 9 from 11am to 7.30pm at The Folly, Whites Road, Royapettah.
Published – April 08, 2026 11:47 am IST