In February 2000, Jennifer Lopez wore a green Versace dress at the Grammy Awards. It caught the world’s attention that many online users have tried searching for it on Google.
Image from Google Blog post “18 years after Google Images, the Versace jungle print dress is back”
Google has written in one of their blog posts that, “back in 2000, search results were still just a list of blue links. When the Search team realized they weren’t able to directly surface the results that people wanted—a picture of Jennifer in the dress—they were inspired to create Google Images.”
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt wrote in Project Syndicate in 2015 “When Google was launched, people were amazed that they were able to find out about almost anything by typing just a few words into a computer. The engineering behind it was technically complicated, but what you got was pretty rough: a page of text, broken up by ten blue links. It was better than anything else, but not great by today’s standards.”
Screenshot from Project Syndicate
The event broke the internet 20 years ago. Due to overwhelming search queries from online users that brought a dramatic turn of events to the fashion industry, the dress was declared as one of the fashion legends. Everybody wants to see and grab the picture of the iconic green Versace dress that Jennifer Lopez wore that night. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to give the users exactly what they wanted. They were inspired and reiterating to make this possible. Hence, Google Image Search was born.
At Milan Fashion Week held in 2019, Google reunited with Donatella Versace to commemorate the historic moment in fashion and Google. The show ended with the Google Image search field on the screen showing a command, “Okay Google, show me the real Versace jungle dress,” and then J. Lo appeared wearing a revamped version of the iconic green dress. The Milan Fashion Week was successful and undoubtedly has become one of the most Googled events in 2019.
Sources
18 years after Google Images, the Versace jungle print dress is back by Vincenzo Riili. Published on Sep 21, 2019.
The Tinkerer’s Apprentice by Eric Schmidt. Published on Jan 19, 2015.
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