Exactly twenty-five years ago, in 2000, Jennifer Lopez served one of the most sensational looks in the history of fashion. Her dress was so iconic that it inspired the creation of Google Images. She flaunted the now-legendary low-cut green Versace dress to the Grammy Awards.
The risqué silk chiffon flora-fauna print dress, with a deep V-neck flirtatiously exposing her navel, broke the internet. The Versace dress became such a phenomenon that many people started searching for it on Google. The viral moment reshaped the fashion world and revolutionized online search.
When Google was just two years old and was mostly a text-based search engine, it launched in 1998. Google, during that time, only had plans to add an image component. However, the overwhelming demand to see J.Lo’s pictures in the green dress made Google rethink its priorities.
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As per The Hustle, “Google enlisted engineer Huican Zhu and project manager Susan Wojcicki (now-former CEO of YouTube) to build it, and had it launched by July 2001. In its first year, Google Images managed to index approximately 250 million images.”
“At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J.Lo [Jennifer Lopez] wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born,” explained Google’s chief executive officer, Eric Schmidt, in 2015.
The exquisite dress made its first appearance on Versace’s Spring/Summer 2000 runway, where American model Amber Valletta donned it.
The viral Versace dress moment almost did not happen in 2000. Due to Lopez’s busy schedule while shooting for The Wedding Planner in the same year, Jennifer planned to meet with her then-stylist, Andrea Lieberman, on the day of the Grammy Awards. Jennifer said on the Moments in Fashion series on YouTube, “Usually, if you come to a fitting of mine, there are tons of dresses and tons of shoes. But this day, we really had a choice between two dresses. One was kind of like a white dress, and the other was the Versace… dress,”
Andrea, however, was not in favor of the Versace dress, as Sandra Bullock, Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, and queen herself, Donatella Versace already wore it. Soon, Andrea realized that J.Lo had completely owned the dress. She told Billboard, “When she tried it on, everyone knew it was the dress. The critical challenge for Andrea was to keep Jennifer’s breasts in place, though.
.@JLo closed the #MFW @Versace show in *the* iconic green dress. https://t.co/uS7Es1h5OF 📹: @thealexbadia pic.twitter.com/jjOmS7IdTc
— WWD (@wwd) September 20, 2019
Ever since Jennifer Lopez wore the jaw-dropping green gown, other celebrities haven’t shied away from recreating the iconic look. In 2019, Lisa Rinna wore the Versace as her Halloween costume and also got J.Lo’s approval. Lopez told Access Hollywood, “She looked awesome. It was really cute.” In 2020, Tyra Banks channeled her Lopez moment, wearing an iteration of the green jungle-print gown made from Versace chiffon scarves.
— jlo (@JLo) January 29, 2022
On the 2022 episode of “Night of a Thousand J.Los.” RuPaul’s Drag Race season 14 participant Kerri Colby walked the catwalk wearing Lopez’s famous flowing gown, which the performer and trans activist disclosed was “the same dress” Lopez wore at Milan Fashion Week in 2019.
“… So, it was a feature moment that was a very limited quantity made for Versace that year. I happened to be able to get my hands on the same exact garment,” Colby told Entertainment Weekly for its Quick Drag Twitter Spaces. “I definitely had to return it as soon as I got back. That was literally my lifeline. [My friend August and I] were basically like family, so I didn’t do any crazy contracts or sell my soul for the dress!”
When a video of Colby wearing the garment on Drag Race was shared on Twitter (now X), the Mother star responded with four green hearts, ostensibly indicating that Lopez approved of Colby.
