Jennifer Lopez’s dress rocked the internet and inspired the creation of a Google search

More than two decades ago, Jennifer Lopez changed the internet forever when she wore a dress so striking it inspired engineers to create Google Image Search.

It was at the 2000 Grammy Awards when Lopez’s emerald green and blue palm leaf-print Versace dress became one of the most enduring garments in fashion history.

Low-cut, the gown’s plunging neckline was plunging past Lopez’s navel. Every step forward sent a dramatic cascade of chiffon behind her and kept onlookers wondering about the gown’s structural integrity.

“The dress was provocative enough, I think, to get people really interested,” Lopez told Vogue years later, on the 20th anniversary of wearing it.

“When it broke, everyone was like, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ Nothing. It’s all recorded,” said the actress.

It became the most searched query on Google at the time, according to former Google CEO and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

“People wanted more than just text,” he wrote for Project Syndicate, an opinion commentary publication, in 2015.

“But we didn’t have a surefire way to get users exactly what they wanted: JLo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”

In the days before Google Image Search, any results page consisted entirely of website links and text. The scandalous Versace dress — a pop culture moment that needed to be seen to be understood — exposed a hole in the search engine’s offering. The tool was released in July 2001.

The now-iconic gown was one of three dresses offered to Lopez ahead of the awards by her then-stylist Andrea Lieberman. And while the green dress has become synonymous with Lopez, she wasn’t the first celebrity to wear it.

First worn by her stylist Donatella Versace to the Met Gala in 1999, the dress was later worn by Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell at the NRJ Music Awards in 2000, just a month before Lopez. But none of the rides caused as much of a stir as when it was used at the Grammys.

To mark the 20th anniversary of that moment, Versace sent a reimagined version of the legendary gown down the runway to close its Spring-Summer 2020 show at Milan Fashion Week – enlisting Lopez’s help once again to bring the piece to life.

When the crowd saw the reworked dress (now sleeveless with even more cutouts showing at the waist and embellished with sequins), they rose to their feet and applauded.

“It was incredible,” Lopez said after the show, “the power of a moment in time, the power of fashion.”