De­siree McEachrane

Per­haps un­sat­is­fied with the mun­dane, the Above Group has de­signed Meiling­inc.com with one of the most orig­i­nal and in­dige­nous con­cepts seen on a lo­cal Web site. And it is per­fect for show­cas­ing the work of one of the Caribbean's most pro­lif­ic and re­spect­ed fash­ion mavens. Type in the web ad­dress and you'll im­me­di­ate­ly en­ter scenes of both myth and mem­o­ry. The home page opens to the "draw­ing room" of a typ­i­cal Wood­brook "wood house" – in the 1950s.

Its a dusky evening. The half-lit wall is adorned with a throw­back draw­ing of a man in sus­penders. Both the can­dles and the retro TV are flick­er­ing and the light­ing has a de­li­cious­ly haunt­ed feel to it. And they're just get­ting start­ed. Click on and you'll find that each tab comes with its own eeri­ly lit scene and the sub­tle for­est sounds to match. Choose "bou­tique" and a la di­a­b­lesse-type fig­ure ap­pears in the house door­way (back­lit with a red ha­lo). Browse on to bridal, where you're greet­ed by a sin­u­ous Ma­ma D'lo, dressed in white and beck­on­ing you in­to the riv­er.

The con­tact page is pre­ced­ed by douens un­der the stun­ning sil­hou­ette of a silk cot­ton tree. Rather than be­ing dis­tract­ing, the elab­o­rate scenes and haunt­ing an­i­ma­tion whets the ap­petite for the pho­tos of Meil­ing's past and present col­lec­tions, and you can browse through the sim­ple, clean lay­out eas­i­ly. Pho­tos and video loads fast; and since there's so much to see, that's def­i­nite plus. The site gets away with the black back­ground be­cause of the many im­ages and Meil­ing's large­ly light and colour­ful de­signs look lu­mi­nous against it. But the black back­ground proves to be prob­lem­at­ic when you try to read the Meil­ing sto­ry. Meiling­inc.com's in­no­v­a­tive, bold con­cept and fast up­load would make up for any mul­ti­tude of sins, were there enough to list. Suf­fice to say this is one site that will pull you back time and again to en­joy its nov­el­ty and uber-fresh fash­ion.