Jennifer Lopez's Iconic Versace Dress Basically Started Google Images
20 years later, the singer shares the origin of the most talked about red carpet gown in history.
Throughout the years, Jennifer Lopez has walked the red carpet in over-the-top looks that will forever be remembered in pop culture. Case in point: The star's jungle-print Versace gown from the 2000 Grammy Awards was so iconic, it's credited with creating Google Images. In her YouTube series, "Moments of Fashion," the singer opened up about the origin story of the head-turning look and also revealed which designer she'll be wearing to this year's Met Gala.
"Usually if you come to a fitting of mine, there’s like tons of dresses. But this day, the day of the Grammys, we really had a choice between two dresses. One was kind of like a white dress and the other was the Versace jungle-print dress. I put on the green dress and come out and [my manager] Benny goes, ‘That’s it. That’s it. Don’t even talk about it. That’s the dress.' And of course my stylist is mortified. She’s like, ‘No! It’s been worn before!’ But the guys were adamant and we said ok," Lopez shared in her YouTube video.
Of course, Lopez had her concerns with the dramatic plunging neckline — but the actress made sure she wouldn't have any wardrobe-malfunctions when she hit the red carpet. "[my biggest worry was] whether or not my boobs were gonna pop out on stage. There was never any danger of that. I was so securely stuck into that thing that there was gonna be no mishaps,” she said.
The star continued to explain the immediate reaction the fashion-forward dress received once she arrived at the Grammys: "All of a sudden you start hearing a little murmur. I’m thinking, it’s the Grammys. It has to be somebody famous behind us. It was a frenzy. The flashes started going in a way that it’s not usually. There was an extra kinetic energy there. I was like what the hell is going on? I had no idea it was about this dress.”
Needless to say, J.Lo had everyone talking with her Versace ensemble: The next morning, major newspapers across the country featured images of the navel-grazing look — and prompted a craze amongst Google users to find photos of the outfit online. "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: JLo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born," explained Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google.
Almost 20 years later, Lopez has continued to surprise and delight the fashion world with her extravagant wardrobe choices, many of which were designed by Versace. So it's fitting the singer revealed she will be wearing the label to the 2019 Met Gala. And while we have to wait a couple more weeks until the first Monday in May to see what exactly the star will wear, we always have J.Lo's style archives to hold us over.
