Dreams in the Mirror

In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud describes the dream as a person's true dialogue with their inner self. Dreams preserve the self-interest of the psyche: they let subconscious impulses be released and expressed, and so bring the mind back into harmony. A dream is another life, intimately bound to our own.

Here, in the noisy city, is an entrance to a dream: a journey of the mind that lets body and spirit catch their breath. CLINSKIN and E Studio have joined forces again to explore the future of technology-led anti-ageing. After CLINSKIN 1.0, "Multi-layered Dreams", this project opens a second dream, "Dreams in the Mirror", building a pure and ethereal utopia.

CLINSKIN 1.0 placed you inside the dream, the subconscious wandering of someone too close to see. CLINSKIN 2.0 looks into the dream through the mirror: it stands outside it, a clear-eyed observer. In the clamour of the world, it opens a passage into the dream and, for a moment, out of reality.

A dream is the self-consciousness infinitely magnified, ruled by the id.

At first there is nothing: the id at the centre, endless void all around, and the void's reflection in the dream is a strange, shimmering white. We wanted to build this pure dream as a real place, perhaps the dream's original face, the place where it all began.

Entrance

Dreams show us the unvarnished truth of nature. Jung saw the dream as a small hidden door in the depths of the psyche, the soul's most intimate secret. On entering, a vast white surface, rippled by waves of light, looks as moist and flawless as new skin. It leaves visitors endless room for imagination as their minds slowly drift away from reality. The shimmering white is the release of the dreamer's inner feelings and the wandering of the subconscious, letting the spirit float lightly.

Hall

The brand's core of pure space as framework is kept, and the senses stay wrapped in a white keynote. Under the light, the unique texture of flawless crystal-jade glass reveals its natural beauty, a metaphor for skin repair.

Reception Area

Curved furniture and walls are like a warm hand calming a restless soul, while daylight-like light falling from above illuminates the brand's core: a single-minded focus on technology-led anti-ageing skincare.

Skin Analysis Room

Runway of Dreams

The inner rooms all lie hidden behind the reception desk. Bright at first, the light dims along the corridor, completing the shift from public to private space and suggesting calm and privacy. The long, deep corridor slows the pace into a winding approach, creates a continuous space and unbroken views, leaves room for imagination, and draws guests on to discover and explore, step by step, on a journey into the dream.

Make-up Room

A unified, pure tone across public and private spaces gives a quiet, elegant composition and sensory experience, conveying a pared-back spatial aesthetic. Soft, airy lighting and well-judged empty space leave more room for the imagination.

Double Treatment Room

However hazy a dream may be, it lies hidden deep in our hearts and keeps the mind from ever finding peace until it comes true. Here an arc fuses wall and ceiling into one, mirrors blur the edges, and dancing light and shadow blur the line between reality and dream, letting consciousness slip away from the real world and travel deeper into the dream.

Soft edges and forms and flickering light are like smooth, fine skin, breathing without pause.

Treatment Rooms

A dream is a tear in the soul, the soul seeping through. Each room's door sign lifts the curtain on one dream after another.

Dream A

VIP Room

The private rooms carry on the same aesthetic. Curves soften the coldness of the glass and open up the dimensions of the space, letting the eye travel further; dream and reality interweave, giving the interior a sense of timelessness. Soft grey velvet adds intimacy and calm, and the two work together as one.

Store Identity

The key challenge was to imagine a store identity that works for today: how to move a brand's standardised, replicable chain-store model towards an experiential brand space that can keep growing.

Looking Back at MixC World: Where the Dream Began

CLINSKIN 1.0, "Multi-layered Dreams", the brand's first concept flagship, opened at MixC World in Shenzhen.

The dream within a dream goes back to the Zhuangzi's "On the Equality of Things". The dreamer is woken by something in the dream, only to find that the waking was itself a dream; another trigger, another waking, and the cycle may repeat once, twice or many times before one truly wakes.

What we see in dreams is hard to describe exactly; their images are often bewildering, yet within the dream they seem perfectly reasonable. In a compact plan, a misty white acrylic screen brings the consultation desk and make-up area together, dividing the space simply and clearly. A slowly flowing curtain of light brings calm and gives soft fill light at the mirrors.

Misty, translucent and lightweight materials reinterpret the stereotype of technology-led beauty. Anti-ageing technology is precise control over the passage of time: gentle and rational, not a dramatic reversal.

Today's urban women have their own taste and make their own choices. They do not follow trends or chase empty show; they prefer skincare that is professional, attentive, efficient and of the highest standard, valuing an experience that is singular and distinctive, and CLINSKIN answers with advanced professional aesthetic services.

CLINSKIN has always held to one idea: do one thing wholeheartedly, and take technology-led anti-ageing skincare as far as it can go. As collective spending on aesthetic technology booms and the market turns over at speed, brands keep looking for new markets and directions; this project is a new venture by E Studio and CLINSKIN to explore the industry's boundaries and possibilities.

Client
CLINSKIN

Location
CLINSKIN 2.0: Uniwalk, Shenzhen
CLINSKIN 1.0: MixC World, Shenzhen

Area
CLINSKIN 2.0: 228 m²
CLINSKIN 1.0: 179 m²

Completion Date
CLINSKIN 2.0: 2023.01
CLINSKIN 1.0: 2021.11

Design Firm
E Studio

Lead Designer
Fan, Junjian
Zhou, Xuanzhuo

Design Team
Zhang, Jieying

FF&E
Deng, Changyi

Photographer
CLINSKIN 2.0: Yuuuun Studio
CLINSKIN 1.0: Zhang Chao Architectural Photography