How Gamers Suited Up for ‘The Traitors’ Fashion Revolution

During his time on Survivor, Arocho was limited to three outfits for the 26 days he was marooned on the island. As the owner of a hair salon and an especially expressive man, Arocho longed to show off his style. So, when Arocho got his invitation to Scotland to film The Traitors, he was excited to swap his Fijian rags for Scottish riches. “Coming from a show where I've been looking dirty, not showering, everything is [covered] with mud or with burns, I wanted to look good,” he tells me over a video call.

For his second experience on reality TV, he set out to elevate his everyday look and pay respect to his personality. Each of his on-screen outfits was styled by Saenz, largely in his own brand, Black Lagoon, save for the flamboyant, fluffy banquet suit he was murdered in. “I love wearing stuff that people would not normally wear because I am a person that is not normal,” Arocho says. “I say stuff that's crazy, so my outfits should be like that too.”

Pioneered by previous Traitors contestants like Parvati Shallow and Phaedra Parks, there has been a certain expectation on contestants to deliver fashion alongside the requisite murder and betrayal. “It is a really big part of the show, what everybody wears,” says Rob Cesternino, fellow faithful, famed Survivor player, and the host of the Rob Has A Podcast. “I think it's one of the reasons for the success of the show.”

Although Arocho found this thrilling, his close friend and fellow Survivor winner Natalie Anderson preferred to stay down to earth. Anderson has completed much of the reality TV circuit, but she’s probably best known for her dominant game in Survivor: San Juan del Sur and welcome return in Survivor: Winners at War. Filming in Nicaragua and Fiji, Anderson found the lack of sartorial pressure refreshing. “I prefer zero attention to wardrobe. I'm not good with that,” she tells me. “I actually liked not packing anything for Survivor and just having one outfit.”

In her day-to-day life, Anderson is much more focused on fitness than fashion; most days, she dresses only in workout clothes. So, when she traveled to Scotland for this season of The Traitors, she packed light. In fact, the show’s own wardrobe team provided Anderson with clothes at times in order to match the aesthetics of the castle. “People are like, ‘Oh, did you have a stylist?’” she says. “I'm like, honey, I didn't even have my hair dryer.”

Shortly before the show, Anderson went shopping at Nordstrom Rack and TJ Maxx and bought clothes that accentuated her muscular figure, with the multifaceted intention of making herself feel strong, reminding her cast mates of her strength, and showcasing a body type rarely seen on television, especially in a cultural environment dominated by GLP-1s.

“No shade to Ozempic,” Anderson tells me, “but the last thing little girls need is only seeing one body type. With my nieces, I'm so diligent to always show them that my body is more than just looking small. I'm always like, I feel so fucking strong.” As Arocho sees it, “Natalie, obviously, is a fucking beast. She's an Amazonian, and so it's all about her body, and she got a lot of help from wardrobe.” He adds that fixating on her clothes misses the point. “A lot of the outfits, people are giving her crap for on the internet. But this girl, look at her body. She doesn't need to wear shit. But now you're criticizing her because she didn't have her hair done?”

Cesternino, in both his time on the show and through his podcast coverage of it, noticed that the women on the show were unfairly judged for their appearances, by viewers and castmates alike. “I think for the most part, the guys have it easy in terms of what they wear to the castle,” he says. “We've seen in The Traitors where if a woman shows up and isn't looking 100%, people feel like something's off. ‘Why is she tired? Why does she not look ready to go on a red carpet right now?’”

The comparisons are especially harsh given that the former Survivor players are dining with fashion mavens like Lisa Rinna, Monét X Change, and Maura Higgins (who Arocho and Cesternino agreed was the best dressed.) Anderson frequently found herself forced to choose between spending a little extra time getting ready and being there for crucial in-game conversations. More often than not, she chose to stay in her competitive lane. “I'm used to having nothing, so I don't give a shit how I look. I'm used to looking like a crazy person on TV,” she says. Her prioritization isn’t for nothing. Anderson has outlasted the rest of the “gamers” – the show’s term for Survivor and Big Brother contestants – and has largely shrugged off any suspicion placed upon her.

Cesterino, in turn, was one of the first gamers to be eliminated, robbing him of the opportunity to show off his personal style, made up of sensible cardigans and subdued over shirts. “I wanted to try to strike a balance between being elevated from my everyday look, but not exactly Met Gala,” he says. “I wanted to feel warm in the castle, and I think that letting me have some level of comfort in addition to an elevated style would allow me to be able to play the game that I would want to play.” For the reunion, airing immediately after the finale on February 26, Cesternino is opting for a respectable suit, picked out by his wife.

Anderson hopes to use the Andy Cohen-hosted show as an opportunity to “step her game up,” fashion-wise. Although she’s still weighing a few options, she knows that she wants to feel good. “If I feel strong and powerful, I automatically feel sexy.”

Arocho, between fittings in his Mexico home, already has everything figured out. His outfit, designed by his husband and his family, is almost ready. Can he tease anything about it? “It’s a lot of layers, and some of the fairy action. Oh, my God, I can’t wait for everybody to see it.”

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