Fashion & Love Island
What is it Really like Being There... And What is the Deal with Fashion?
I may have done interviews in the past about my experience with Love Island. And I have spoken about the relationship with the clothing sponsor - I Saw It First, at the time. But I haven't written freely about the whole experience before, with all the nuance, deep-dives and behind the scenes tell-alls.
The context to all of this needs to be part of the conversation - fast fashion and Love Island have been synonymous for years. And knowing the dynamics will help you see why it’s such a massive deal to talk about their main sponsor now, which is eBay. I’d recommend everyone listening to a podcast about how all these started on BBC Sounds with Pandora Sykes. The journey from Big Brother to Love Island and when fashion entered the conversation.
Love Island’s recent season is number 11! It’s the second All-Stars edition, and one of the recently added “Winter” Love Islands filmed over in South Africa, rather than the famous Mallorcan villa that I was in. My season was in the summer of 2021, also known as Season 7. But way back in Season 3, the producers latched on to something. It was said that the contestants had begun to re-wear things from previous nights and when filming the important bits by the fire-pit, it started to look like a repeat, and so the producers decided they needed to do an ASOS order, to kit everyone out in new garms and refresh the look.
This set the tone for new outfits being required for every new scene, every night, especially if the cameras are airing a particular event like a re-coupling or a dumping. This then fed into actively searching for sponsors for the show the following season, which would provide clothing for the contestants. But also fill in all the add breaks as well as provide opportunities to the Islanders once they’ve left the villa. Spawning the Love Island Influencer-pocalypse
At it’s peak, and still now, these sponsors were dishing out millions of pounds to be the principle sponsor and then offering islanders six and even seven-figure deals to become the face of the brand once they returned home. When you think millions sounds like a lot, let me tell you the scale of the production is absolutely massive. Not only is the actual villa huge, and is cleaned every day, with a fully stocked fridge and catering that comes in twice a day. There’s a bunch of production that is added to the villa, as well as a base-camp type place down the road which houses a lot of the production facilities, tens of villas dotted around the island to house all of the staff working on the production, producers, a villa each for the islanders that get flown out (‘bombshells’) and put on-hold before entering, and then all of the same for “Casa Amor’. (a second villa which is used half way through the regular format seasons). On top of all that, on my year, each prospective islander had a chaperone, as well as someone who would do the food shopping (which of course is also all covered by production), security guards and a welfare team available more or less 24/7. Of course islanders also get paid for their time away (It was usually a few hundred pounds a week) and some would get paid approx. £1500 to do posts on their instagram accounts too (their family members running the accounts of course do the posting). Then you add clothing too…
Whilst I was in “cast holding” I was sent a code for £500 free shopping on ISawItFirst. This was literally an entire wardrobe as jeans were 12 quid and tops sometimes less than 5. Obviously I declined the offer and for anyone who doesn’t know, I declined everything. My loophole in doing the show was to take my own clothes and not wear anything the show or the sponsors offer me - then they can’t use me in any advertising. During this period in holding I was contractually obliged to make some videos for social media about my workouts - I intentionally made them as bad as possible so they would never be used.
During the process of entering the villa you have to go and meet the staff and do all the prep, some filming and other bits and bobs. You actually have to give them your suitcase to go through and they repack it for you, and it will be waiting for you inside the villa. I packed a couple of pieces which actually went missing during this bit - two Katharine Hamnett T-Shirts; one a collaboration with Patrick McDowell which said “HELP” in huge letters - An ode to the fashion industry’s need for help since the disaster that has been Brexit. And another which more obviously said “FASHION HATES BREXIT”. Both gone. I tried my best to champion some British brands and some of my favourites - Hemingsworth swim shorts and Orlebar Brown resort wear, Riley Studio (now gone), King and Tuckfield, I was friendly with the CD of Casablanca at the time and wore some bits from there, my famous Church’s sandals (that I wore with socks), Nanushka and of course, Lemaire. Steff Yotka actually interviewed me after coming home for Vogue Runway and the article was titled “From Lemaire to Love Island”, she joked I must be the only person ever to wear Lemaire in the Love Island villa.
Once inside the villa, a human-sized duffle bag of clothing arrives at the front door full of clothes from all of the shows sponsors again. Everything from underwear to swimwear, to evening outfits and work out gear. One thing though that really made feel a rough way was the massive mountain of “waste” clothing in the bedroom.
For my year, the villa bedroom was one long line of beds next to each other and a camera (CCTV Style) at one end. Just out of shot, behind the very last bed was a pile of junk and clothing. Most of it had been worn just once, and then chucked in to the pit ready for the cleaners to clear it out during the sunbathing sessions and pulled chats the following afternoon. This cycle was endless, a few more days go by and the pile gets bigger and bigger. The conversations I was having with other islanders gave me an insight into the mindset of young people everywhere though.
Eventually I got my claws into a few of them, and once they saw my wardrobe we started to share pieces. When they asked me for advice on what to wear in the evenings, on multiple occasions they replied with, “I can’t wear that because it’s the same outfit I wore for a re-coupling 2 weeks ago.” This was baffling to me and my response was along the lines of “literally no-one cares though”. But that is the realistic mindset for so many people back home as well. The giant fear of rewearing and someone noticing. Once something has been worn on a night out, or been posted to the gram, it’s dead to them. When the person who influenced them to buy something moves onto something else, so must they.
On my exit from the villa, I could have taken the famous Love Island suitcase home with me packed full of all the clothes and shoes I could’ve had from my time there. I think Liberty, who I flew home with, had 5 suitcases??? The villa is also a product placement haven. Every shelf stocked full of products from Boots. Cosmetics, skincare and sun lotion. All the baseball caps were from a specific sponsor - another item confiscated from my suitcase, hence the sun burn because I was absolutely not wearing one of their shitty caps.
Essentially the deal is, if you wear their stuff, Love Island and the Sponsor can use your image, name and voice in any* marketing for almost 2 years after the show ends. That’s social media, ecom, website, tv, radio … everywhere. So it was a solid no from me.
Fast forward to the following summer and I got a call from Vogue about the change in sponsorship. It was an amazing change and I was very grateful to have been interviewed about it at the time, and even given some credit for my work since leaving the show. I was pretty outspoken about how bad fast fashion was and Love Islands’ role in it, even when ITV would call me each Friday for check-in.
The next few seasons saw preloved enter the show, little by little, a shared wardrobe, even clothing jumping across multiple seasons and finally television ads and ongoing social media campaigns. We have also had the first preloved eBay ambassadors and Tasha Ghouri in particular has been a great champion of the shift. Stylist Amy Bannerman has pioneered styling the seasons and her work has even led to a preloved fashion during LFW.
I hope it continues and I hope all the other reality shows can follow suit. This season has been an All Star fest, but so many of them have taken the fast fashion money before. Will any of them leave that behind after doing the show again, and will they be put on the straight and narrow of better fashion?
I might have to slide in a few dm’s and keep them in line…
Great read as always - so interesting getting your insights and experiences on so many topics 👏🏻
Thank you for continuing to talk about this! I know the least interesting thing about you is your LI stint, but it was such a great platform to launch from. You're able to reach more people because of it.
I know how ridiculous the first part of this sentence will sound, but I've been writing a fiction for the past year (and a half; I'm very slow) set on Love Island, and my main character put her foot down and refused fast fashion. She mostly wears her own pieces (including vintage & thrifted), and managed to get the producers to provide her with thrifted items instead of the usual body-con dresses and polyester princess outfits. It was just a tiny moment within the whole story, but it was important for me to say it.