- Jennifer Lopez made fashion history at the 2000 Grammy Awards wearing a green, plunging Versace dress.
- The now iconic look has been previously worn by other celebrities including Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.
- There was so much search interest in photos of this costume that Google decided to create the Google Images feature.
It was a Grammys look that will go down in history.
At the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2000, Jennifer Lopez closed out the red carpet wearing a very plunging green Versace dress that made headlines before it even made headlines. In fact, this spurred the creation of Google Images, a search engine feature that allows users to search for photos online.
“At the time, this was the most popular search query we had ever seen,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt wrote. project syndicate “But there was no surefire way to get users exactly what they wanted. JLo was wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”
The barely there look featured a pattern of tropical leaves and bamboo, and seemed sheer due to the sheer quality of the silk chiffon material. A dazzling citrine brooch kept everything in place, artfully placed below the navel and above the dress’s bold leg slit.
More than 20 years later, Lopez’s look remains as popular as ever. Below, learn the story behind Jennifer Lopez’s green dress, including why she barely wore it at the 2000 Grammy Awards.
This dress was part of Versace’s Spring/Summer 2000 collection.
Hector Mata/AFP
The Versace jungle dress was on the runway before the “Let’s Get Loud” singer made it famous. Model Amber Valletta wore this look in the house’s Spring/Summer 2000 collection presentation I also participated in the collection’s campaign in Milan.
Donatella Versace believes that the viral moment she wore Lopez’s bold dress has established her credibility as a designer. Donatella herself and Spice Girl Geri Halliwell wore it before she became a singer. “I didn’t break the internet. I didn’t break Ginger Spice, but JLo did it,” says the designer. share in fashion‘s 2019 Forces of Fashion Conference.
Lopez’s stylist begged her not to wear it.
Alain Beninas/Gamma Raffo, via Getty Images
Lopez revealed in 2024 fashion video interview How her iconic Grammy moment was almost swallowed up by an alternate timeline. Lopez’s stylist at the time, Andrea Lieberman, advised Lopez not to wear the dress because Halliwell and other celebrities had already worn it.
“My stylist said, ‘Don’t wear that. Someone else is wearing it.'” She was like, “Well, you bought it for me and it looks great, so I’ll wear it.” And so did I. And it caused quite a stir,” Lopez explained.
Later in the same video, she reflected on the monumental impact of this look. “I think every generation needs that iconic Marilyn dress, and this is the dress for this generation,” she said. “Why did it happen? It just happened to happen the moment the wind blew and I went on stage.”
Someone has already called dibs on this dress, and it’s not my daughter Emme.
If you’re the daughter of a megastar, you’ll inherit a wardrobe’s worth of amazing designer fashion. Lopez’s 17-year-old daughter Emme already has her eyes set on her superstar mom’s dreamy look, but in 2018 Lopez revealed that her then-girlfriend Alex Rodriguez’s daughters wanted their Grammys dresses to be their own.
“Even Alex’s daughters [will be] Like, “I want your Grammy dress.” Emme can get the other one.” spider woman’s kiss the star said people. “All the girls are getting something. Natasha, Ella, Emme, well, it’s like they’re all getting a little bit of something,” she added.
Lopez wore an updated version of that dress at the 2019 Versace show.
Jacopo Laure/Getty Images
Almost 20 years after her Grammy moment went viral on the internet, Lopez is at it again. The artist appeared as a surprise guest at Versace’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection in Milan in September 2019. Her introduction also served as a callback to her look that inspired the creation of Google Images.
as seen in video Donatella posted on her Instagram, and attendees watched as the designer asked Google’s virtual assistant to show them an image of a “Versace jungle dress.” The bot returned a photo of the dress. “OK, Google, come on, show me.” genuine This time, Lopez strutted down the catwalk in a reimagined version of the original dress to close out the show.
In January 2020, Lopez said: vanity fair About the experience of recreating the “dress” for the first time in about 20 years. “The second time I wore it and walked outside, it was very empowering,” she said. “It’s been 20 years. I think it resonated with women to know that they could still wear a dress 20 years later. They were like, ‘Yeah, life doesn’t end at 20!'”