Here’s the thing about Love Island: whether you are a first-time watcher—drawn in by online discourse or FOMO induced by your personal group chats or office talk—or an OG, long-time fan of the villa by way of the UK version, you likely know exactly what you’re walking into. That is: Conventionally hot people being, well, hot, a microcosm of modern dating dynamics that will either make you appreciate your partner or decide that maybe singlehood is not that bad, and a host of fashion choices that range from oh, that’s nice to how did she get that on? (Or, really, how does that stay up?) Ah, the look of love.
Or, Love Island, rather. Unlike many television shows these days (both reality and scripted), the fashion on Love Island serves one very specific purpose: Mating. Pardon the crassness, but although the show is a Peacock original, the style in the villa is hardly meant for peacocking. It’s also not about clout or collecting fashion bona fides. This isn’t Jenna Lyons wearing The Row on The Real Housewives of New York City—or pointing out a fashion faux pas to one of her castmates. This is also not And Just Like That, with its runway samples eager to get the approval of Carrie Bradshaw’s eagle-eyed fashion connoisseur fans. Rather, the clothing in Love Island is merely about looking good and enhancing those chiseled, exercised (and sometimes pre-enhanced) islander bodies. Which, really, is what most people see fashion as—that thing you leverage to look your best or to speak for yourself when you walk into a room.
While the fashion-philes in our TikTok For You pages are thrifting Victorian-esque bloomers, arguing about Tabi boots and loafers (yes, still), or breaking down the best way to dress like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (also still), many of the folks you see out and about—and at bars and clubs, really—are not thinking about fashion this hard. It’s a good thing, too. The reality is that not everyone is mood-boarding on Vogue Runway or dying on the hill about fast fashion (a worthy one, that is), and they don’t have to be. Still, what makes it to our screens on a show like Love Island is, to loosely quote the Cerulean blue monologue in The Devil Wears Prada, a takedown from the trends that have been circulating the runway ether. Take the Love Island boys as an example: Their short-sleeved, camp-collared button-downs worn over white tank tops, those mesh-y polos and craft-like textiles—they’re all ideas originally proposed by Bode, Prada, and others. Even the abrupt inseams of those tiny workout shorts have been discussed at length longer than the shorts themselves by designers on the runways and writers at magazines like GQ or even this very website.
But here’s what I pulled you for a chat about: The look of love becomes most interesting when we consider how the women choose to present themselves. How does one dress for Love Island? You have to pack for an evolution: To stay in a house all summer long, to be simultaneously outside and at home, to be a bombshell or a serious contender for the role of serious girlfriend. To be a fan-favorite for those at home, yet an alluring presence for the boys in the villa? It’s a conundrum unique to this addictive TV show yet likely familiar, in some capacity, to women everywhere.
In a way, it starts and ends with host Ariana Madix and her stylist Emily Men. Madix’s choices have been pitch-perfect this season, wearing everything from vintage Roberto Cavalli to LaPointe, PatBo, and a simply fantastic crisscross LaQuan Smith fuchsia dress. What makes her style so convincing and effective is not simply that she looks very good, but that Madix is wearing the references—meaning that for all the fast fashion the contestants are sporting (more on that later), Madix has on the source. Her slinky, scantily-clad frocks feel true to the Love Island spirit in that they’re a joyful, sensual, beachside villa fantasy. But they’re also elegant, elevated, and in the case of a draped, hooded Defaïence dress (priced at $1,100), pretty chic, for lack of a better word. Think a sort of sexy, 2020s Slim Aarons—ah, that’s it. Madix allows herself to be every so slightly high-brow.
Madix has fashioned herself as the aspirational figure in the villa—the true bombshell to conquer them all. She even gives us a runway walk each and every time she enters the villa—she is meant to be a statement. She is the agent of chaos that shakes up the show with every statement-making appearance, and she’s dutifully and successfully dressed the part.
As for the islanders, the look of love is actually one of lust, too. And while Madix is wearing the reference, the contestants are buoyed by the usual suspects: Fashion Nova, Shein, Asos, H&M, et al. Consider that, while there is much conversation online about fast fashion sponsors and shared wardrobes awaiting in the Villa, these contestants are bringing many of their own clothes, bought before potential internet fame. Should the expectation be that they’re all decked out in Madix-level—and priced—clothing? Simply no. Perhaps that’s why you’ll see self-fashioned villa main character Huda in everything from an $80 Skims slip dress to lots of separates from trendy fast fashion destination Outcast Clothing. Olandria, a current fan-favorite and arguably the best-dressed islander, is more often than not in Shein—some of the best and skimpiest it has to offer, that is.
After years of working with fast fashion partners, the United Kingdom version of Love Island started partnering with eBay in 2023 in an effort to promote a more sustainable outlook on fashion. It was a compelling switcheroo considering Molly-Mae Hague, one of the show s most well-known participants, went on to become the creative director of fast fashion giant Pretty Little Thing from 2021 until 2023.
Could the stateside version of the show follow suit with a similar partnership? Should it? It’s, in islander terms, early days for this version of the show, but the simple answer is yes. Why not inspire its millions of viewers to shop consciously and sustainably? The more tantalizing answer—one posed by the devil’s advocate—is whether or not changing the look of the show could change the show itself. In broad strokes, possibly. The look of Love Island is, in many ways, what makes us unable to look away. Skimpy, sexy, racy. Would two islanders sharing a sneaky, clandestine kiss hit the same if they were wearing, say, vintage J.Crew, or if they looked like the fashion influencers fighting it out over Margiela Tabis on our aforementioned For You pages?
Probably not. But Love Island, as exemplified by Madix, poses an opportunity for fashion. It just begs the question: should the emperor get new clothes?
