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People like to tear Jennifer Lopez down for her complicated relationship history and sometimes insane efforts to be relatable because of her Bronx roots, but in some ways, it’s because of her have to give it up. That said, J.Lo always looks great. In addition to being one of those celebrities who doesn’t look like she’s aged 20 years, the “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” singer also has impeccable style. And when we talk about her fashion, we can’t forget the look of Lopez that stands above the rest: the green Versace dress.
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First released in 1999 and worn by others before Lopez, the jungle-print Versace dress with a plunging neckline made a splash in fashion and pop culture until she wore it in a fashion show. It didn’t attract any attention (more like a cannonball!). 2000 Grammy Awards. It quickly became her most iconic fashion moment, and Lopez paid tribute to it during Milan Fashion Week in September 2019. Later, Lopez walked the runway wearing a new version of the dress. Founder Donatella Versace also joined. It was a very feel-good moment for the singer, as she told Vanity Fair in 2020. “I think it’s true for women too, to know that 20 years have passed and you can still wear a dress 20 years later. It resonated. It was like, “Well, life ends at 20. That’s not it!” she said. But this dress didn’t just bring new attention to young Lopez. It also led to major advances in the Internet.
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J.Lo’s Versace dress helped create Google Image Search
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In a 2019 video for her YouTube series “Fashion Moments,” Jennifer Lopez took us on a flashback to the night she first wore a dress. “And we showed up on the red carpet, and it was hot,” she said, referring to Sean “Diddy” Combs, who she was dating at the time. “I didn’t know it was about this dress,” she said later in the video.
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Specifically, this bold ensemble sparked an online sensation and inspired Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to break new ground for their then-text-only search engine. “At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen,” former Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt wrote in a January 2015 Project Syndicate essay. “But there was no surefire way to get users exactly what they wanted:[J.Lo]wearing that dress,” he said, adding that Lopez’s bombshell required Google Images functionality. He pointed out that it was proven that
We’re glad Lopez decided to wear that dress on that fateful night. As she revealed in Vogue’s “Life in Looks” in February 2024, her stylist vetoed the dress because “it was a dress that someone else had already worn.” did. Luckily, Lopez was already in love with the outfit and told her stylist, “‘Well, you bought it for me and it looks great, so I’m going to try it on.'”
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