Ariana Grande brought two of her greatest loves to the red carpet last night: boyfriend Ricky Álvarez and a very, good piece of vintage.
At the New York premiere of , the singer and actor made her first red-carpet appearance with Álvarez since rekindling their romance earlier this year. And if their constant embraces, adoring glances and kisses were anything to go by, the pair are very much still in the honeymoon phase.
Grande’s stylist Law Roach selected a vintage 1990s Badgley Mischka gown for the occasion. The delicate, spaghetti-strapped design featured a pale silver-grey windowpane check, a fitted bodice scattered with tiny beaded flowers, and a voluminous floor-skimming skirt. She accessorised with Swarovski Matrix hoop earrings – a recent favourite – and traded the flipped bob she’s been sporting of late for a sleek micro ponytail, tied with a little ivory ribbon.
Roach is on a particularly impressive archival streak of late. He’s been mining the fashion vaults for Kim Kardashian’s press tour, pulling everything from 1990s Dolce & Gabbana to Paco Rabanne couture. Just last weekend, he dressed Anya Taylor-Joy in a spectacularly ruffled spring 1997 Pierre Cardin ensemble for the LACMA Art+Film Gala.
Grande has long been a devotee of fashion’s more whimsical, romantic history. Her love of vintage reached particularly fanciful heights during the press tours, but the singer has since held firmly to her soft, ultra-feminine aesthetic with 1950s silhouettes and diaphanous fabrics. At one point, her dedication to the look was so pronounced that some wondered whether she was quietly auditioning for a rumoured Audrey Hepburn biopic. Roach revealed that he’d bought the Badgley Mischka gown months earlier, drawn to its connection with the era of the original Meet the Parents film.
Álvarez, for his part, kept things considerably more low-key. The dancer and photographer wore a relaxed black blazer over an open-neck white shirt, tucked into dark indigo jeans with rolled cuffs, a leather belt and brown shoes. Some classic easygoing boyfriend dressing. He spent much of the evening with an arm around Grande’s waist, while she leaned into him, held his hands, and beamed up at him for the cameras.
Of course, the couple’s love story has its own history. Grande and Álvarez first met when he worked as a backup dancer on her tour in 2015. They dated for around a year before splitting in 2016, and he later received a memorable name-check in her 2018 breakup anthem, “thank u, next”. Almost a decade later, however, things have come full circle. Rumours of a reunion began circulating this summer when the pair were spotted together in Austin, Texas, during Grande’s tour, before more sightings followed in Florida and New York. By August, they were Instagram official, and Grande had debuted a new tattoo reading “I do love you”, seemingly matching a similar inscription on Álvarez’s collarbone. The two were also spotted arm-in-arm around London, where Grande completed her 10-night residency at the O2. She even began rewriting the Ricky lyrics in “thank u, next” onstage. At one Brooklyn show, she sang, “Wrote some songs about Ricky / We always find our way back”. By the tour’s September finale in London, the sentiment had become considerably more definitive: “I’m tryna make him my last.”
More recently, they’ve been enjoying some more ordinary couple activities, including cheering on runners at the New York City Marathon earlier this month. Grande has also enlisted Álvarez for a particularly kiss-heavy R.E.M. Beauty lip-product guessing game on Instagram.
Between a decade-old romance finding new life and a beautiful dress pulled from the archives, Ariana Grande is making a persuasive case for revisiting the past.