Sustainability was trending on the runways at Milan Fashion Week (well, hopefully it won't just be a trend). At Versace, jungle prints in bright green and orange/red were all the rage, even though, to be honest, they weren't too sustainable as the foliage was often rendered in three-dimensional plastic sequins (at times applied on Prada-evoking shirts…) or the motif was printed on transparent emerald green PVC raincoats.
Alternatives were provided by little black dresses with boxy shoulders that were cinched at the waist, as modelled by Amber Valletta.
The star of the show, though, wasn't the jungle print per se (reinvented through different iterations throughout the collection that wasn't certainly that extraordinarily new – it looks like the fashion house has been resting on its jungle prints rather than on its laurels…), but Jennifer Lopez in an updated version (still with plunging neckline, but this time with a billowing tail and an open back) of the 2000 Versace dress she donned at the 42nd Grammy Awards (that was originally modelled on the runway by Amber Valletta).
At the Grammys J.Lo looked gorgeous in the dress that helped cementing her reputation as a fashion icon. The picture went viral, so viral that it forged an interesting link with technology.
The day after the awards, on February 24, 2000, "Jennifer Lopez's green dress" became one of the most popular queries on Google. Search results for the query, though, showed the search engine wasn't delivering what users were asking for.
Google's then CEO Eric Emerson Schmidt decided that there should be a way to look for the images and not just the fashion link and the company started working on a new type of visual search engine. Shortly afterwards Google Images was born.
In July the house of Versace anticipated the return of the jungle print launching a pair of Versace X Concepts "Chain Reaction" sneakers (that retailed at $1,075), covered in the iconic motif.
On the S/S 20 runway J.Lo's entrance was anticipated by a tech moment: a Google Image search flashed on screens, a voiceover of Donatella Versace asked for the images of the Versace jungle dress. The results were photos of J.Lo from 2000. A new search asked: "Okay Google, show me the real jungle dress", and J.Lo appeared on the runway looking like a goddess. 
This wasn't the first time Versace recreated the dress for J.Lo: in June 2014, the singer appeared at a concert in the Bronx in a new version of the gown.
Enthusiastic fashionistas looking for trendy Halloween costumes will be happy to hear that Fashion Nova has re-created a series of celebrity looks including the 2000 Versace for J.Lo dress (available from the retailer's website). At $69.99 it sounds like a bargain, but, you're warned, wearing it may not instantly turn you into a super fashion icon à la J.Lo.
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