At the CFDA Awards, Amber Valletta Reminds Everyone She Wore That Versace Dress First

On this day, November 4, 2025, the red carpet at the CFDA Awards shimmered with nostalgia and power as Amber Valletta stepped out in the dress, the lush, plunging green Versace Jungle Dress that has lived a thousand lives in fashion memory.

For the first time, the 51-year-old supermodel wore it on the red carpet, reclaiming her place in the legend she helped create back in 1999, long before Jennifer Lopez turned it into a pop culture phenomenon.

First unveiled on the runway for Versace’s Spring/Summer 2000 collection, the dress was pure Donatella: unapologetic, tropical, and impossibly sensual. Valletta first modeled it in 1999, its silk chiffon print floating like jungle mist under the runway lights, and later appeared in a campaign lensed by Steven Meisel. The dress’s magnetic pull quickly spread — Donatella wore it to the 1999 Met Gala, Geri Halliwell followed soon after, but it was Jennifer Lopez, at the 2000 Grammy Awards, who made it immortal.

That night, the world’s fascination with Lopez in the daringly low-cut gown was so intense that millions went online to see it again, only to find that Google had no way to deliver images. The frenzy led to the creation of Google Image Search, proving that a single dress could alter not just fashion, but the architecture of the internet itself.

Now, over two decades later, Valletta has re-entered the story she began. At the CFDA Awards, where Donatella received the Positive Change Award, the moment felt poetic, a reunion of muse and designer, of history and renewal. As Valletta stood beneath the lights once again, the gown no longer belonged to one era or one woman, it belonged to the story of fashion itself, where beauty, memory, and cultural change are forever entwined.