TikTok is filled with plenty of slop these days, but between videos of AI-generated Days of Our Lives-ish microdramas and bland “Day in My Life” routines you just might find the perfect dress to wear to your next big event. At least that’s how Love Island host and Vanderpump Rules alum Ariana Madix stumbled upon a butter yellow Versace dress from the spring 2006 menswear runway collection via vintage showroom Isle of Monday. After a quick call to her stylist, Emily Men, and plenty of fingers crossed (for lack of a backup plan during the fitting), the glittering gown, originally worn by Isabeli Fontana, brought a warm bout of nostalgia to the Love Island Season 8 reunion stage.
“Someone joked online that this show is my personal Met Gala, and they’re not wrong,” Madix laughs. “To me, the fashion on Love Island is a fantasy—it’s this fantasy world where I can wear things that don’t necessarily work in the real world.” Since landing in Fiji for the US iteration of the beloved UK reality dating show in 2024, Madix has explored fashion more thoroughly than she has during prior public appearances.
For that, she explains, you can partly thank Summer House’s Lindsay Hubbard, who introduced Madix to Men. Madix originally thought that people bought their own look for every occasion: “I just didn’t understand how any of that worked,” she recounts. “It’s not the same thing as going online and just ordering—which is what I was doing—and I think I was just spending so much money that I didn’t really have.”
Photo: Carl Bembridge
As style has moved front and center for the reality star, Madix now counts Men as a close friend—one who pushes her to explore a more sartorially daring side. “I spend a lot of time on my phone looking at clothes, and I’m a big fan of vintage fashion and fashion in general,” she says. “And a lot of times, I feel like I see such amazing looks that I don’t necessarily have access to, so the fact that we were able to get our hands on this incredible Versace dress was amazing—it’s one that I’ve been eyeing for a while.”
While still on the island, this season’s looks have included a shimmering Area mini, a liquid Di Petsa cutout dress, an archival-inspired Jean Paul Gaultier polka dot ensemble, and, Madix’s personal favorite, a fetish-inspired custom Taylor Jean Cox dress and corset completed with its own lace-up bumster moment. The high-fashion looks were given an extra zhuzh with the help of her brand-new brunette hair, which Madix thinks upped the high-fashion factor. “I think with blonde hair, you really are very limited in what you can wear and can’t wear that doesn’t start looking, as the kids say, ‘cheugy’ or ‘lame,’” she says. In contrast to the darker hair, the Versace dress “felt like a ray of sunshine, reflecting on the water.”
