The moment Jennifer Lopez stepped out in her famous green Versace jungle dress will forever be remembered as a key moment in Hollywood fashion history, but what few fans know is that Sandra Bullock actually rocked that same number first!
“When I first saw the collection, I knew there were some star-maker dresses in there,” Phillip Bloch, the man that put Bullock in that dress, told Straight Shuter.
The Miss Congeniality actress, 55, wore the dress to the Vogue Fashion Awards in 1999, looking edgier than ever, while J.Lo, 50, rocked it one year later, at the 2000 Grammy Awards with then-boyfriend Sean “Puffy” Combs. She also wore a reimagined version of the iconic green dress this September 2019 when she closed Versace’s Spring 2020 show at Milan Fashion Week.
“When I saw that dress in the red, I thought it was perfect for Sandy and I loved the embellishments around the waist. I thought it was perfect for her body type and I love how it has the cutout around the hip. Sandy thought that was really sexy,” Bloch continued.
The outfit changed Bullock’s life, in a way, but the public’s reaction was much subtler than it was for Lopez.
“For her it was stepping out of the girl next door box. She felt like this was her Naomi Campbell moment. She was feeling like a fashion model,” Block said of Bullock. “She practiced her runway walk and giggled and laughed through the fittings. She wanted to definitely do something fashion-forward and little did we know how fashion-forward that dress would be at the time and how iconic it could be.”
Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, and Donatella Versace also wore the dress before Lopez, but the “Jenny From The Block” singer was the one who truly brought it to the spotlight.
“The right dress always finds the right woman. I’ve learned that time and time again,” Bloch added.
Straight Shuter’s podcast, “Straight Shuter: Naughty But Nice” tells all the details.