This story is from Stuff

It’s no real surprise that when sex worker Lucia and friend Mia get access to a charge account at the swanky Sicilian resort her date for the week is staying at, the first items rung up are new outfits. Flashy clothing has always been a signifier of the upwardly mobile.

Like all the characters on The White Lotus, HBO’s horny hit show which sets its second season in picturesque Italy, Lucia and Mia are cosplaying their ideal selves through their clothing. In a Pretty Woman-esque move, they ditch their flimsy nightclub dresses for designer versions of essentially the same thing.

Whether it’s that local pair trying to keep up with the cashed-up hotel guests or Hamptons housewife Daphne pulling on her twentieth kaftan in a colourful print and heading towards the nearest Aperol Spritz, the show’s costume designer Alex Bovaird told Variety recently that the costumey feel of the outfits are all intentional.

“When people, especially Americans, go to Italy, they dress up a bit more. They bring their A-game,” Bovaird explained.

The get-ups don’t reflect what you, or I, pick up off the sandy floor and step into on day four of our Whangamata beach break, but these are all self-important American tourists staying at a five star Sicilian resort. You’d up the ante too.

The look-at-me costuming pays off when the effetely charming Quentin tells Tanya, a woman who is intentionally trying to recreate Monica Vitti’s romantic and nostalgic on-screen La Dolce Vita looks, that she is, “So chic. You have impeccable style.

“The moment I saw you last night I said to Matteo, 'finally, a glamorous woman in Taormina’. It’s just the colour. All the women here dress like they’re going to a funeral on the beach, but you… thank god you’re here.”

Bovaird has said previously that the costuming on the breakout HBO series sits somewhere between fantasy and reality and in a way, that’s all of us on holiday, is it not?

Whether we’re packing multiple outfits per day or racing to get our toenails pedicured before we head to the airport, the version of us you meet on holiday is not the real deal. It’s a lesson Tanya seems to have realised all too late about the man she met in Hawaii last year.

Even the two characters who claim their outlook and outfits are immune from the traps of money get swept up in it a bit.

Harper, the judgemental and cerebral wife of recently wealthy Ethan, starts the trip in more relatable holiday wear: breezy linen shirts and modest one-piece swimwear, joking with her husband that they’re “larping as rich people". But by episode three even she’s dressing in a more curated and overtly feminised manner. She’s even donned a silk headscarf.

Portia, Tanya’s young and despondent assistant wears lots of clothes that the internet has pointed out could be plucked straight from the wardrobe of slightly messy but very influential internet star Emma Chamberlain. She wears loud pieces by House of Sunny, a Gen-Z focused brand from the scene-driven London suburb of Hackney (they’d be by Ganni, if she could afford them).

More accurately, I suppose, the clothes wear her. “She’s young, she doesn’t really know who she is, and she’s trying on different ideas,” Bovairds explains. Where better to figure it out that poolside overlooking Mount Etna?

Talking about psychics that set up shop on the streets of New York, and who influenced the cameo of a fortune-teller in episode three, Bovaird told Variety, “They all dress slightly into the trope, because that’s what people want.” It’s the same for the guests of The White Lotus.