The Widows from Waste: The Gathering of the Materials

In the collection ROSKALESKET || The Widows from Waste, the materials are put on a pedestal being not only the physical substance, but also the reason and an inseparable part of the inspiration and the story.

For a collection so deeply connected to the melancholic story of the prematurely disposed clothes, the source of the materials was self-evident. In the world where every year clothing textiles are being overproduced and too easily removed from the active use, choosing the secondhand materials for creating something new from was a natural choice. To find the suitable materials was as easy a task as finding them brand new and it was also more fun. Yet at the same time, the searching process was surrounded by the constant, saddening reminders of the shallow consumption. There were so many clothes no one seemed to want anymore regardless of their condition. All those heaps of materials had once been produced from something and all those clothes had been sewn by someone. The clothes had been shipped in many cases from one end of the world to another. Afterwards those clothes had been bought and worn more or less actively. Now they were only a step away from being burned or buried. But for the Widows, there is hardly anything that would be better suited for the task at hand than these clothes on their way to oblivion.

The secondhand clothes are easy to come by as many cities have secondhand markets, secondhand stores and of course, the online sales. For this collection it was vital to be able to see the garment’s condition in person to make sure to find the clothes least wanted by others but most wanted for the Widows. That meant visiting the stores physically and going through their selection by hand.

The charity shops are overflowing with clothes just waiting for a chance to be purchased for a new round of use. While buying from such a store, the buyer is not only doing an environmental act but also helping out the cause the shop in question is supporting. During the search for the materials, I visited several charity shops over a lengthy period of time. The most ideal time to make the purchases for this collection was the time of the clearance sales. Rows after rows of clothing racks were bending under the heavy weight of the clothes which the shops were desperate to be rid of. The clearance sales seemed like the time during which the innocent garments were having their final chance of being purchased in their current location. Walking in during the last days of the clearance had given all the clothes a fair chance to be newly adopted to loving wardrobes, leaving hopefully behind only the ones that were faulty beyond this redemption. These shunned remnants were the most perfect in my eyes.

The thrift shops with their tables full of clothes someone needed for a reason or another to depart with were another great source of materials. Buying secondhand from a private person is also like helping out a stranger. Maybe they simply need more room in their apartments or maybe there is a greater or heavier cause behind their reason for selling. Looking at the tables makes you wonder about the person. What are they like, what do their homes look like, who might they be? While sailing in between those tables full of hidden treasures, I kept my eye out for the broken and disfigured, hoping to find the clothes that the other buyers were least likely to purchase.

A lost button or two? A permanent stain? A hole here or there? A broken zipper? None of that mattered. I could cut around the ruined parts, join a piece to another by sewing, making the many into one complete entity that would stand out proudly once again. In the Widows these clothes would find a new purpose, a new meaning and a new life.

It is a deep woven tradition in the western culture to wear black as a sign of mourning. The widows and the funeral goers wear the dark, respectable and modest clothes for the memorial services. The history tells of the widows who wore black for years and years after losing their loved ones. For the Widows of ROSKALESKET || The Widows from Waste collection, the black was yet another natural choice that led the choosing of the materials.

In the western tradition of old, the widows were often well dressed. Looking at the black and white photographs, the drawings and paintings from the historical eras or at the surviving dresses conserved at the museums, the spectators may see many beautiful fabrics and equally beautiful detailing having been used for the mourning attires. Following the tradition, I wished to give these Widows the air of respect and dignity. Due to the sadness of the theme of widowhood, I wished to combine in also something comforting. These features were best present in the curls and swirls of laces combined with the shimmering, soft velvet.

The black is an easy color to find secondhand any day and over the times of changing fashion trends. There have been periods of romantic laces as well as the ambient velvets.

Visiting the charity shops and the secondhand markets, the easiest to find were the stretchy, cheap lace tops. I saw so many of the sort (very similar pieces from different brands known for fast fashion) that a whole collection of evening gowns could have been created using only them! It is not hard to imagine these tops being bought to fill in for a momentary fantasy picked up from a magazine or an influencer, only to be tossed away as the trend passed on to yet another quirk. The more detailed, better quality lace was a good deal trickier to come by, keeping in mind that it should have as little potential to be bought as it was and to be used in its original form. With patient searching, one by one, enough of these were found.

The soft, slightly elastic velvet that would be the main material of ROSKALESKET required its own time to be gathered. Not every visit to a store yielded a price, but eventually a shirt from one place and a pair of pants from another found its way to the studio. Here and there some tulle tagged along, whispering about the mournful veils and the possibilities of haunting details.

Now, after a good deal of time spent sorting, airing and laundering, the laces, velvets and tulles are ready to start their transformation. The Widows will come back to mourn their lost loved ones, their previous owners. Where are they now? Are you one of them?

On the next post, I’ll write to you more about the story of the collection. Until then,

Sincerely

Iina