All lookbook photos by Xi Sinsong

For their Spring 2012 presentation, INAISCE eschewed models, and chose to display their collection on mechanical surrogates, hanging in a sparse gallery setting.  Freed from the body, the clothes were meant to be seen for their full utilitarian potential, and the garments were ethereal and airy, yet simple and practical.  I admit, it was a lot easier to photograph the clothes without pesky models fidgeting about in them while looking bored and not knowing how to pose.  Nonetheless, for such drapey and thoughtfully cut garments, it is often easier to see them on the body, and the lookbook photos provided a beautiful supplement to the show.  The photographs referenced the Ancient Sino influences behind the collection, while simultaneously enlivening somber color palette with imagery that takes clothes beyond the gothic connotations that the viewer might initially perceive.

-Tiffany