Amber Valletta cat-walked so J.Lo could “roar.”
The former model took a playful swipe at Jennifer Lopez’s iconic Versace gown – the sheer, emerald and teal foliage frock the singer sported on the 2000 Grammys carpet – on Thursday’s installment of Vogue’s “Life in Looks” video series.
Valletta, 49, reminded everyone that she “wore it first” on the catwalk just a year prior to its viral success as one of J.Lo’s most iconic looks.
“This dress has been Googled more times than any other look in history,” the supermodel said in the latest episode. “It literally broke the internet when [Lopez] wore it, so it’s kind of cool to be a part of that history — but I wore it first.”
In fact, even Donatella Versace donned the dress before Lopez did when attending the “Rock Style” Met Gala in 1999, followed in January 2000 by Geri Halliwell, otherwise known as Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls, at the Cannes, France, NRJ Music Awards.
But apparently, the fourth time’s the charm – the dress didn’t make a splash until everyone caught a glimpse of J.Lo at the Grammys later that year.
The supermodel described the dress as “the pinnacle of fierce Versace sexiness, blond ambition,” but it didn’t become a style sensation until Lopez graced the red carpet in the dangerously low-cut design, paving the way for more daring outfits.
“It was a massive iconic moment when she wore that dress,” Valletta continued. “Nobody went out like that, ever. I mean, no one had ever shown skin in the front like that, you know, past the navel.”
“I think it was just so ahead of its time and just said, ‘I’m woman and hear me roar,’ ” she added. “Literally from the jungle.”
The “On the Floor” singer previously revealed how she nearly didn’t wear the statement piece at all.
In a video for the YouTube series “Moments In Fashion,” Lopez said it took some convincing before her stylist allowed her to wear the gown – at the time, she wasn’t sure what the hubbub was about, not realizing what a commotion the gown would cause.
The Versace creation not only served as the blueprint for brazen fashion, but it also inspired Google.com to launch its image search feature after queries for the gown skyrocketed.
At the time, Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google and its parent company Alphabet, Inc., wrote that it was “the most popular search query” the engine had seen, but as people clamored to find J.Lo in the dress, the tech giant realized it needed the image search function to deliver exactly what the people wanted.
Other than sparking a viral frenzy, the dress became cemented into pop culture history, inspiring a “Saturday Night Live” skit and even “South Park” co-creator Trey Parker to debut an unconvincing dupe on the Oscars red carpet later that year.
Lopez herself has worn the dress – or a version of it – multiple times over the last two decades, including on the Versace runway in 2019 in a reimagined rendition.
“We knew it would be a fun moment but we did not know, just like the first time, that it would be like a thing,” Lopez previously said, according to Us Magazine. “We didn’t know that it was so viral.”