Make your ex regret your break-up, while avoiding the biggest mistake of revenge dressing: Our fashion expert's five rules for a revenge dress - and it doesn't have to cling, be low cut or leg-revealing!

You whitethorn person seen nan pictures of Love Island big Maya Jama past week wearing a cobalt blue, sheer lace dress, cutaway successful nan mid-section to look for illustration a bra apical and a split-front sarong skirt.

For context, she was retired connected nan municipality successful Ibiza, nan upwind was warm, she was wearing flip flops - but Jama is besides recently single. Her Ibiza look was not conscionable Hot Love Island Style, it was a five-star Revenge Dress, astatine slightest according to her fans.

The timing surely puts it successful nan Revenge Dress (RD) category. She wore it a matter of hours aft she and nan rapper Stormzy released a associated connection explaining they are parting ways, again. And it surely qualifies arsenic a caput turner (the number 1 request of an RD).

In Maya's case, however, matters are alternatively much complex. A Revenge Dress is, by definition, respective degrees of wow supra and beyond your normal dressed up best, and her apparel mostly deed a 9 aliases 10 connected nan Look At Me standard anyway. She wears rubberised corset tops and clingy nude skirts without a 2nd thought.

Added to that, according to nan couple's elaborate statement, their divided couldn't beryllium much amicable. So there's nary revenge per se, connected this occasion. Only bully vibes.

Still it's successful nan ballpark of Revenge Dresses. An RD is really immoderate dress worn pinch nan intention, conscious aliases otherwise, of making personification announcement you and regret having fto you go, moreover if nan break-up was your idea.

Strictly speaking, it shouldn't beryllium called a Revenge Dress, it should beryllium called a Look What You're Missing Now Dress aliases a See How Quickly I Moved On Dress. Or moreover a Don't You Just Love Being Back successful Control Dress. But revenge has a bully ringing to it and, if nan show of it hurts personification a bit, well, truthful overmuch nan better.

We've each had our RD moments. Sometimes they're thrust upon you: you observe he's going to beryllium astatine nan statement and person to activity fast, barren your puffy eyes, get retired of furniture and get a maximum effect frock from your astir va va voom friend.

Sometimes an RD is 1 you haven't been capable to get into for years; aliases it's a dress you loved and he thought was excessively much; aliases it's an outfit (doesn't request to beryllium a dress) he would ne'er person dreamt you would wear; and sometimes it's armour plating to protect your shattered heart.

But what each RDs person successful communal is: they're intended arsenic a connection of defiance, a awesome that location is life aft your ex, and infinite possibilities too. You mightiness not carnivore him immoderate sick will, but you still would very overmuch for illustration him to regard successful awe and regret that things didn't move retired differently. Don't you wish your adjacent woman was basking for illustration me?

The RD, for illustration revenge itself, is champion cautiously planned and not slung connected successful a fever of rage. The revenge dress that's etched connected each our memories was nan Gucci small achromatic dress Diana wore to a Vanity Fair statement astatine nan Serpentine Gallery statement 30 years ago, nan nighttime of nan Jonathan Dimbleby interview, erstwhile Charles admitted his infidelity connected nationalist television. 

That dress had it all. It was achromatic (along pinch reddish nan apical revenge colours – dramatic, strong, confident). It was very sexy and leggier than thing she had antecedently worn. And it was racy fast-lane Gucci, not smart and sober Caroline Charles – different mini motion that she was embarking connected a marque caller life.

We each retrieve it because it was elegant arsenic good arsenic strikingly sexy. Lately we've sewage successful nan wont of equating revenge dressing pinch assemblage revealing, soma flashing, postulation stopping dressing - nan much connected show nan louder nan connection - but this is basal entry-level revenge dressing.

The champion RD should make your ex boggle, admire, and deliberation doubly not conscionable because you look awesome but because you look for illustration your astir confident, glowing and gorgeous self. The champion type of you. The 1 that you'd been hiding, aliases they'd been suppressing, aliases your life together someway denied. You whitethorn execute this pinch second-skin agleam bluish lace aliases a leg-revealing skirt (both successful Maya's case), aliases you mightiness get location pinch thing long, achromatic and achingly blase that makes him think: 'Who's that? Did I underestimate her?'

That was nan guidance Jennifer Garner chose to spell successful for her first nationalist quality aft her divided from Ben Affleck: a one-shoulder, sculpted diva gown that looked for illustration couture, worn pinch a steaming oculus and a pout. Perfectly sounded RD, particularly since her marque was fresh-faced girl-next-door. Showing what you've sewage but not needfully revealing everything is simply a large portion of successful, memorable revenge dressing.

Jennifer Aniston besides chose nan softly slay-them attack aft Brad Pitt near her for Angelina Jolie. She turned up unsocial to nan premiere of her 2005 movie Derailed successful a soft gold, sequin embellished, sleeveless Chanel dress which mightiness person been stitched connected her perfect, toned body. It was her Marilyn dress moment. She positively glowed and that healthy, happy look is nan all-important accessory an RD needs: nary magnitude of glove-fit couture tin screen up a period of sleepless nights.

We should spare a thought for personage females retired for revenge. It's not easy to pump up nan wow facet fixed really they look connected an average, all's good day.

The fabulous, very low-cut metallic satin dress Liz Hurley wore successful 2000, a fewer months aft she and Hugh Grant had parted company, was arsenic RD arsenic they get. But past again truthful was nan safety-pin Versace dress she wore to nan premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral six years earlier while hand-in-hand pinch Grant. 

Likewise, nan short sequin dress Britney Spears wore to nan premiere of Crossroads successful 2002, conscionable station her divided from Justin Timberlake, looked a batch for illustration a dress Britney would deterioration to her ain movie premiere: dazzling camera candy, and mischievous. Pushing nan vessel retired and looking your station break-up champion is that spot harder to execute erstwhile you're dressing up each nan time.

It besides intends celebrities are little apt to make fools of themselves successful nan RD zone.

We civilians are much susceptible and we tin spot a hastily chosen civilian RD astatine 50 paces. A Revenge Dress must beryllium sexy but it doesn't person to cling, it doesn't person to beryllium debased trim aliases limb revealing and, if you're considering an RD, retrieve it should ne'er beryllium each of nan above. Most importantly it should look for illustration you were calved to deterioration it, alternatively than you borrowed it from your punchy, 1 size smaller friend.

You mightiness want to get her proposal though. Like brew goggles, station break-up goggles are a existent thing. In nan reddish mist of nan bitter extremity of a relationship, aliases successful nan rosy glow of freedom, you are apt to consciousness a spot unmoored and much inclined to return risks (or possibly you conscionable don't care). An RD should murmur saccharine revenge, not roar it from nan rooftops because nan full constituent is you should look for illustration you've moved onto being nan new, back-and-even-better-than-before you, not personification desperately trying to get her ex's attention.

Good dressing tricks for nan precocious dumped are:

• Getting into very precocious heels erstwhile you were antecedently incapable to deterioration them connected relationship of your partner's height;

• Boho relaxed show style which you couldn't get distant pinch antecedently because he was much of a play club, shirt-and-tie type;

• Leopard people (if he hated it; immoderate men do)

• 'Altering' a dress he bought you and turning it from a regular frock into a sizzling basking dress 

• Stepping correct extracurricular your comfortableness area and carrying it off. If you remember, nan Princess of Wales, during nan little play erstwhile she and William were 'on a break', wasted nary clip getting into a very tiny Seventies roller disco outfit, and, conjecture what, it worked for illustration a dream. They were backmost connected earlier you could opportunity 'nice hotpants'

How effective is revenge dressing? It's a awesome self-esteem booster. It's fun. It's worthy it. But if you really want revenge, chop up his champion shirts. Better still, day his champion friend.