ROSKALESKET || THE WIDOWS FROM WASTE

The lifespan of the clothing has been shortening drastically. The harmful fast fashion eats a tremendous amount of resources and it’s constantly surrounded by numerous scandals of ethical and environmental nature. The disposal of the textiles is problematic as well. The clothes we throw away may end up burned, buried or handed down a chain of hands that often don’t even want them, just to end up at a destination unknown. The clothes used to be loved and taken care of, they used to have a great value.

The Widows from Waste are the abandoned clothes that suddenly came alive in the darkness. Their loving human partners nowhere to be found, they were shaken and in a state of a great confusion. The clothes tangled up, knotted and folded, until they formed five haunting, human shaped figures. As the Widows, they wandered from the darkness out to the world, to mourn their lost ones in a never ending funeral procession.

The collection is made entirely by using secondhand clothes that were bought from the charity shops, the secondhand stores and the flea markets. Especially the broken and the unwanted were the most wanted materials. Most of the detailing on the clothes are sewn on place by hand. It was not only a transition from fast fashion to slow fashion, but also from the simple, thrown away clothes to the complex evening wear.

The Widows from Waste were captured on a camera by Fiia Torhola at the ruins of the Church of St. Michael at Pälkäne, Finland.