Former Russian spy Anna Chapman, who has cultivated a sex bomb image since her return to Moscow, is now launching a signature line of dresses to be sold in stores around the country.

Chapman’s official website describes the designs as “lethal weapons for women”.

The clothes will go on sale in February, initially online and then in stores. Photos on Chapman’s website show models posing in high-necked long dresses with elbow sleeves and full skirts.

Chapman, who returned in 2010 under a high-profile Russia-US spy swap, presented the line of dresses and accessories at a trade fair in Turkey.

Chapman’s site says she was inspired to create the collection after she flew back to Russia “in just a prison shirt” and found that she could not buy attractive dresses made locally.

On Thursday she gave a preview of the clothes at a fashion show for Turkish brand Dosso Dossi in Antalya, a resort popular with Russians.

She told the Vechernyaya Moskva daily that the collection was “entirely created in Russia” and featured motifs from Russian fairytales and folklore, and would be sold in department stores in cities including Moscow and the upcoming Winter Olympic venue Sochi.

Fashion news website Wday.ru published photographs of her handbags styled to look like copies of classic Russian novels such as Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s “What Is to Be Done?”

In 2011 Chapman herself appeared as a catwalk model at Moscow Fashion Week, accidentally dropping a pistol she was brandishing. She has also posed in lingerie for the Russian men’s magazine Maxim.

Chapman has retained an enigmatic silence over her past since returning to Russia. She formally works as an advisor to the president of a bank linked to the space sector, FundServiceBank, although her role is unclear. She also hosts a television show about the supernatural.

She regularly puts in appearances at film premieres and other glitzy events although her fame has waned since her initial return to Russia.

In July, Chapman turned to Twitter to propose marriage to US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

Russian fashion experts were sceptical about the sartorial offerings, with stylist and television host Grigory Lisovets telling Vechernyaya Moskva: “I wouldn’t say Anna Chapman herself has ideal taste. She wears clothes that are absolutely ordinary.”