The Widows from Waste: Femme Fatale

The third Widow of the Widows From Waste collection is not your typical Widow. She is a femme fatale, not a mourner.

There are a lot of wonderful clothes in the world. We have all met some of the alluring ones, the clothes that we instantly fall in love with at first sight. We want to have them, so we buy them and just like that we take them home. But once they are ours, we realize that those clothes don’t fit us after all or that there is never a proper occasion to wear them. Those garments stay beautiful and look down on us from the wardrobe. Even if we never wear them, they can be very hard to let go. Sometimes it’s the opposite and we get rid of them exactly as fast as we got them.

The third Widow is a temptress, a playful spirit. She loves to be loved, but she never mourns after anyone. The moment of falling in love is what she lives for. When that moment passes, so will she also move forward.

There were many ideas for the third Widow on the paper, enough to make a complete mini collection just with the different versions of the femme fatale look. These variations made nods to the direction of the classical Hollywood ladies with their darkly dramatic countenances. In the look that was eventually chosen for this collection, we see a corset: the bold undergarment-to-evening-wear –piece with an almost scandalously revealing yet romantic heart-like shape. The skirt follows closely the shape of the body. It has the short trail that we have seen in the other Widows, as well as the now familiar looking flower adornments cut out of lace, but over one leg there is a very high slit as suits this daring Widow. The third Widow is also the only Widow, whose outfit consists of two separate pieces, which underlines her fickle mood and contemporary lifestyle.

While the skirt follows the collection’s prevailing style, shape and working methods rather closely, the corset was quite a different thing. By a chance, a dear friend of mine had gotten hold of some recycled metal boning meant for the corset making. This was perfect, as the material hunt made by myself had not yielded any of such. The beautiful, good quality bones were truly a treasure! Making the patterns and sewing the corset was as much fun as it always is. There is something particularly satisfying in seeing the strange, narrow pieces come together in these curious garments.

The hat of the third Widow was the most simple one to do out of all five headpieces featured in the collection. While I enjoyed greatly transforming the hats and scraps into new, different hats, the third Widow’s headpiece is almost in its original form. The decoration on its top was the only actual addition: the original shape and material were in the end too beautiful to tamper with. With the little enhancements made, the hat became a perfect companion to the third Widow!

The next one up on the pedestal is the gentleman of the group. Until then!

Sincerely

Iina