Entertainment
Love Island 2021: ‘Dripping’ decor and pink walls – how the villa’s design ‘encourages’ islanders to be curious and break boundaries
The Love Island villa could be cleverly designed to spark attraction and ‘curiosity’ (Picture: ITV)
Apart from sunbathing, muscle flexing, recoupling and grafting, the Love Island villa has been given a specific design to make sparks fly between the islanders with playful pastel pinks and open spaces.
Colour psychologist Lee Chambers has been studying this year’s love shack and says the colours used ‘encourage playfulness’ with its ‘dripping’ interior design choices, welcoming open spaces and ‘stimulating’ walls in the Hideaway, as Jake Cornish and Liberty Poole have already found out.
Hold on, we hear you cry, before we go further – what’s a colour psychologist?
Lee, who has a background in sports psychology, filled us in: ‘It’s a branch of environmental psychology looking at how the colour of our surroundings impacts our psychological state – it can impact everything from feelings, emotions, thoughts, behaviours and actions.
‘It’s also about taking a step back and thinking about how colour, in its richness, can impact how we turn up in the world and how we interact with others. It also looks at the things around the symbolism of colour, colour preference for individuals and how that impacts them.’
Take the Love Island villa for example. The shared spaces such as the bedroom utilises neon blue as a ‘slice of heaven’ to help the islanders wind down while the neon signs around the house, including lips and bananas, make this year’s stars more ‘child-like’ and ‘take things less seriously’. All of which makes for some great telly.
Lee, who has teamed up with paint brand Vaspar, does a deep dive on some of the rooms that stand out for intensifying the changes of romance – or something a little more fleeting…
Hideaway
The Hideaway is designed to create a safe environment for the couple that get to spend the night (Picture: ITV)
‘They’ve got the countenance of the very brilliant white but vibrant and slightly earthy colours. It’s a real balance of stimulating conversation and interaction but creating a safe environment as well,’ Lee explains.
‘Some of the shapes and edging is almost drawing that definitive line where you’ve walked into a space and it’s yours, and you have the freedom to be able to express yourself.
‘With the purple and the red, they’re different shades, warm and vibrant colours to get people stimulated when they’re in there. There’s the heat of the red and the vibrance of the pink stands out given the way the room is structured. They’ve got the light against it to make it stand out even more. It’s going to invoke people to be full of energy, passionate, and use it as a space to be expressive.’
Liberty and Jake have already enjoyed the Hideaway (Picture: ITV)
‘Take red, if we spend time in a red environment it’s very stimulating. It can increase our heart rate and increase our cognition to the point where we want to communicate and be social with others. Purple mixes in a bit of blue coolness and brings a bit of stability and coolness. There’s a symbolism there of romance and connection.’
Bedroom
The bedroom encourages the islanders to ‘destress’ after a hard day’s graft (Picture: ITV)
Unlike the Hideaway, the shared bedroom is designed to have a ‘de-stimulating effect’ thanks to the amount of blue present on the floor and walls and white sheets on the beds.
The blue is a ‘neon type blue, it’s a slice of heaven type blue like a slither from the sky’ Lee explained.
‘That has a destressing effect and that’s what you want in a sleeping environment. It brings people down after the intensity of the other areas in the house and is a great place to get relaxation.
‘There are pops of colour to remind you that are in the villa when you wake up.
‘The bedroom and the bar are two most relaxing spaces. If anyone is having a moment after being mugged off you usually find they’re gonna be there, in a space where they can breathe as the colours bring them down.’
Shared living spaces
The living area has bunnies. Of course. (Picture: ITV)
The general spaces around the villa, and the quirky bunnies dotted around the furniture, are a ‘blast of neon that is designed to get people playful’ says Lee.
The reasoning? ‘We associate neon colours with childhood, like the clothing, cartoons, and the toys that we played with. We start young with primary colours and move on to things that are neon.
‘Neon takes us back to being a kid who is curious about everything who just wants to play without responsibility. That comes through with the bunnies and the hearts. It just says, “Come and play, and be a bit vibrant in this space”.
Yep, there’s some playing without responsibility here (Picture: ITV)
‘Is it a place for a stable relationship? Not really! That’s the beauty of it, it creates that little bit of dissonance. When people are in that mindset and thinking curiously and feeling they are in a playful space they are more likely to take things less seriously and maybe get their head turned to see who’s coming in next.’
We have seen plenty of evidence of that in recent weeks with the arrival of bomshells Millie Reardon and Lucinda Strafford.
Quick colour tips
We asked Lee which colours we would need to create a certain mood – and he did not disappoint…
For feeling energised
Blue or Green
‘For a steady flow of energy, opt for electric blues and emerald tones such as Valspar’s Icy Fresh and Resplendent Emerald. These highly pigmented – but cool colours – can bring a slow burning energy to any space.’
For feeling relaxed
Lilac or Peach
‘We are often relaxed by colours we see in nature, including lighter sunset tones such as lilac and peaches. These hues can help us to switch off and feel welcomed in a space. Valspar colours, Alpine Forget-Me-Not and Sunset Bellini, can mimic these environmental shades, helping create calm in the home.’
For feeling positive
Yellow or Purple
‘We all want to be happy and so often it’s lighter, brighter colours that help us achieve that feeling. Yellow is synonymous with the sun and cheerfulness, while intense purples infuse an assertive confidence to positively step forward. Valspar shades in Bee’s Knees and Lavender Blaze are great options for bringing a positive vibe home.’
For feeling romantic
Red or Pink
‘Rich and bold shades of red – such as Pocketful of Posies – can promote passion, to keep the love flowing. Valspar’s Mad About You is a perfect illustration of this, a deep red that dominates in the villa’s hideaway. Deep blush shades, such as Pinkberry Passion and Lovers’ Secret, also work well for bringing a sense of romance into the bedroom.’
Suggestive extras
A leaking lip bite? Pretty self-explanatory (Picture: ITV)
To the average eye a pair of leaking lips has pretty obvious connotations, but Lee has a much nicer way of putting it, saying the ‘dripping’ signs around the villa encourage the islanders to ‘blur boundaries’.
Lee says: ‘We live in a world where we use geometric shapes and shapes we recognise. The signs like the bananas, the lips, the hearts, everything’s got a dripping element to it.
‘Humans have a subliminal ability to see a solid stable shape, like a relationship ultimately. But the neon signage is structured, then lets itself flow and because we see the dripping, it blurs boundaries a bit which creates psychological freedom of being experimental and being a bit more open.
‘You feel you can step out of these stable elements and experiment a little bit.
‘The villa was designed as a response to what we’ve lived with for the last 18 months. It’s saying brush off your restrictions, come in and have some fun.’
More: Love Island
Boys and girls
The colour psychologist feels there has been a deliberate choice of how to balance the blues and pinks around the villa.
However the areas that are more heavy handed with the pinks, a highly stimulating colour for some people, could be more likely to spark rows between islanders.
‘For some people pink can just be a little bit of overstimulating, and it can casually set off conflicts,’ Lee says.
The villa leans towards the ‘feminine’ with the inclusion of hot pink accents (Picture: ITV)
‘So while it is playful and while there is an interesting balance of the blue and the pink, it is quite heavy on that intense hot pink which – when people are just feeling a little bit fractious – can just maybe tip them over the edge and cause a little bit of conflict in there.’
So no hot pink offices or schools then.
Valspar has teamed up with colour psychologist, Lee Chambers, to showcase how you get the Love Island look at home. To colour with confidence and find your perfect colour match, head to valsparpaint.co.uk.
Love Island continues tonight at 9pm on ITV2.
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