I was literally in the middle of taking a bite of pad thai leftovers, and I was watching Love Island on my laptop, since my TV isn’t modern enough to stream shows. When I saw this girl – I think her name was Sophie? – walk into the villa wearing the most beautiful burnt orange crochet cover-up, and she looked like a sun goddess rather than a gal who raided a craft store’s sale rack, I stopped eating mid-chew. That cover-up was … familiar. Very familiar.
Without even thinking, I pulled up a browser window and began frantically searching ASOS. “Orange Crochet Cover Up” – and there it was. £28.99. Down from £45. Only three sizes left – XS, S, and XL. I’m a solid medium; therefore, I immediately began deliberating internally about whether I could squeeze into a small, and would an XL be an acceptable oversized beachy vibe?
In about two minutes – literally two minutes, I timed it because I’ve now become that person – I refreshed the webpage. Poof. Gone. Sold out. All sizes. Vanished.
“Are you kidding me right now,” I said aloud to my empty apartment. Apparently, I’ve finally reached the point of online shopping frustration where I speak to myself.
And thus, my introduction to what I now understand as the Love Island Effect. Honestly? It’s revolutionized how I view shopping, fashion, and the strange psychological phenomenon of wanting things simply because attractive individuals on reality television are wearing them.
For anyone who has managed to avoid Love Island – first of all, how did you manage to avoid it? Second, please, teach me how you managed to avoid it – it’s essentially a villa filled with incredibly attractive twenty-something-year-olds in Spain, coupling and uncoupling each other while sporting increasingly minimal pieces of fabric that are somehow more expensive than my monthly grocery bill. What began as a trashy reality TV show has unwittingly become the most influential fashion influencer in the UK, and the numbers are absolutely insane.
I became interested in this odd phenomenon — occupational hazard of being a designer, I suppose, I analyze everything — so I began tracking it. Items featured on Love Island sell out within 20 minutes of appearing on the screen. Twenty minutes. I have watched the real-time search spikes on shopping apps during episodes, and it is akin to watching a heart attack occur in a data format.
A friend of mine who works at one of the large online retailers told me over drinks that they employ people specifically to watch the show live and then push the featured items to their home pages before the episode ends. Can you fathom having “Love Island Monitor” listed as a job function on your resume? Actually, don’t answer that question, because I believe I may have unintentionally placed it on mine.
Last summer — because apparently I have too much free time on my hands — I decided to properly study this madness. For two consecutive weeks, I tracked every recognizable article of clothing that appeared on the screen and watched how quickly they sold out of stores. The findings were extreme — 73 percent of the articles of clothing sold out of stores within 24 hours. The quickest to sell out? A turquoise bikini featuring gold chain details that sold out from four different sites within eight minutes. Eight minutes! I’ve spent longer trying to decide which flavor of instant noodles to eat for dinner.
It has essentially rewritten how the fast-fashion world operates. I spoke to someone who is a buyer for a large retailer — I’ll refrain from naming the retailer, but you’ve likely bought from them — and she admitted that they now design pieces based on what they expect will appear on Love Island. They refer to them as “villa ready” in their meetings, which is both hilarious and somewhat dystopian. The requirements? Photographs well for Instagram, looks good on camera, less than £50, and can be produced quickly enough to capitalize on the frenzy.
Honestly? I’m not proud of admitting this, but I’ve absolutely found myself caught up in this rabbit hole multiple times. Once was the strappy sandal debacle, in which I had the item in my shopping cart, was literally inputting my payment information, and it sold out before I could confirm the purchase. I stared at the “this item is no longer available” message like it had offended my entire family.
Then there was the cut-out mini-dress I panicked-purchased at 10:30 pm, because some contestant wore it during a particularly intense recoupling. Did I require a dress with strategically-placed holes cut into it? No. Did it look good on me? Also no — I looked like I’d been assaulted by an overzealous pair of craft scissors. Do I still have it hanging in my closet as a testament to my poor judgment? Unhappily, yes.
Perhaps the worst part is, I’ve developed actual tactics for this. Like, I now have a plan — which is probably the most humiliating thing I’ll confess in print. Rule #1: Start searching before the episode ends. The girls’ outfits generally come from the same few companies — PrettyLittleThing, ASOS, Oh Polly, etc. As soon as you notice something you want, don’t wait until you get a perfect shot of it. Search by colour and item type — the actual product name is usually something absurd, such as “Sunset Babe Feeling Yourself Mesh Bodycon.”
Rule #2: Follow the contestants on Instagram before they’re even in the villa. Their management teams — because, of course, they have management teams now — post “get the look” links while episodes are airing. It’s blatant and obnoxious, and I click on them every single time because I have zero self-control.
There are also Facebook groups specifically created for identifying Love Island fashion. I swear — there are thousands of people who can identify a pair of earrings from a 3 pixel background image. These groups are like CSI: Miami but for fast fashion. I once watched someone correctly identify a bracelet that showed for approximately 1.2 seconds behind someone’s left shoulder. The detective work is honestly impressive, and slightly frightening.
The manufacturers are now aware of this trend. Many are paying large sums of money to have their products featured — directly working with the show’s stylists. A public relations colleague of mine stated over too many drinks that one of her client’s paid “into the low tens of thousands” to have their dresses worn during a particularly dramatic episode. The return on investment? The dresses sold out within an hour and needed three additional production runs to meet the demand.
What’s even more fascinating is how the effect has expanded beyond just replicating the exact pieces. There’s now a whole “inspired by” market — products that aren’t the exact same as what was on the show but evoke the same aesthetic. You’ll see entire sections of websites labeled “Villa Style” or “Island Vibes” without ever referencing Love Island directly because those licensing costs are pricey.
However, here’s the thing that keeps me up at night — is this actually a positive for how we consume fashion? I’m actually split on it. On the one hand, it’s making style inspiration accessible to a wider audience. The Love Island contestants aren’t all coming from wealthy backgrounds — like many fashion influencers — they’re not all from London, not all size 8, not all trust fund babies who attended fashion school.
On the other hand, it’s fast fashion on steroids. The environmental effects of creating pieces intended to be trendy for exactly one night … well, it’s not ideal. And I say this as someone who has undoubtedly contributed to the issue through my own late-night impulse buys.
At dinner with several other designers recently, and after sufficient drinking, the subject of Love Island eventually came up. An editor from a prominent fashion magazine confessed she has a separate credit card for “Love Island Emergencies” to conceal her purchases from her partner, which honestly makes me feel better about my own questionable decision-making. Another admitted to requesting favours from his manufacturer contacts to obtain sold-out items from press offices after viewing them on screen.
The most shocking confession came from someone who covers men’s wear, who stated he’s seen increases in specific styles after they appeared on the male contestants — although he’d “rather die than tell readers that.” Fashion is bizarre, folks.
If you’re wondering if any of this persists beyond the confines of the show itself, the answer is complex. Some contestants — typically those who reach the final and aren’t dumped in week three — turn their villa-fame into genuine fashion influence. Million-dollar brand deals, their own apparel lines, front-row seating at Fashion Week. Other contestants fade away to normal lives, their brief stint as influencers disappear quicker than that orange crochet cover-up.
Thus, I’m preparing myself for another season of Love Island, and I know I’ll be sitting in front of my computer with a glass of cheap wine, watching the ungodly number of attractive people lounging around a Spanish villa while my credit card is perilously near. I continue to tell myself I’ll be more mindful this time. Maybe I’ll establish a “Love Island Cool-Down Period” of 24 hours prior to purchasing anything (although I know these items won’t remain in stock for 24 minutes, let alone hours). Maybe I’ll establish a “Love Island Budget” (I’ll never adhere to it).
Or perhaps I’ll merely accept that I’m going to acquire two questionable fashion purchases that seemed utterly necessary at 10 PM on a Tuesday. There are far worse ways to spend money, correct? Correct?
