The night of Feb. 23, 2000, didn't mark Jennifer Lopez's first Grammy Awards appearance [1], but if you ask anyone on this planet to mention their first memory of J Lo at the award show, they will most likely bring up the green Versace dress she was wearing that night. It's hard to get that low-cut, palm-printed dress out of your mind if you've ever seen it (and we all have). It not only marked the birth of the naked dress [2], but it also solidified Jennifer's position as a true fashion star, unafraid to take risks.
If you're still as obsessed with Jennifer's gown as the fashion world is [3], you'll be surprised to learn that she wasn't the first one to wear it. Find out who walked the red carpet in the dress before J Lo and eight other interesting facts about the dress.
- Model Amber Valletta wore the dress on the runway [4] for Donatella Versace's Spring 2000 show in Milan. Later, she appeared in the brand's ad campaign [5] wearing the same piece.
- The dress was made of silk chiffon and featured a citrine brooch below Jennifer's belly button that held the whole thing together — with the help of lots of double-sided tape, of course.
- The singer wasn't the first star to wear the Versace number on the red carpet; it was actually one of the Spice Girls. Just a month before J Lo's big night, Geri Halliwell, or Ginger Spice, wore the dress with long blond extensions [6] to the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes. The designer also wore the gown at the 1999 Met Gala [7].
- While presenting the first award of the night at the Grammys, David Duchovny from The X-Files said: "Well, Jennifer, this is the first time in five or six years that I'm sure that nobody is looking at me [8]."
- J Lo told Entertainment Tonight that she didn't know the dress was going to be such a big deal [9]. "I just remember walking onto the red carpet, I was with Puffy . . . I walked on [the carpet and] I felt like, an energy. Like everything started stirring. It was a weird feeling. I was like, 'What's happening?' And my dress was happening and I didn't know it."
- The dress is normally in Jennifer's closet (and once ended up being displayed by her housekeeper on a mannequin [10]), but the singer allowed New York City's Neiman Marcus to display it in its windows to promote the launch of her Giuseppe Zanotti shoe line [11]
- At a concert in her hometown, the Bronx, in 2014, Jennifer wore a leotard version of the dress [13].
- Jennifer gave her famous dress a nod at the 2017 Grammy Awards, saying: "I will never forget my first Grammy nomination or the dress I wore that night . . . But this night is not about dresses or even awards." We will never forget it either, Jennifer.
- Google created Google Images because of this dress. "At the time, it was the most popular search query [14] we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born," said Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google.
Keep reading to see every angle of Jennifer's iconic dress.
