Google Images exists because of that green Jennifer Lopez dress from 2000

Jennifer Lopez reflects on the lasting impact of fashion in a new YouTube series

Jennifer Lopez arriving at the 42nd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February 2000. Her green Versace dress prompted the creation of Google Images. Rex Features 

In a newly launched YouTube series, called Moments of Fashion, Jennifer Lopez has reflected on the lasting legacy of the low-cut green Versace dress, which she wore to the 2000 Grammy Awards.

"Probably, my biggest fashion moment ever was wearing the green Versace jungle print dress," the singer said at the beginning of the video. Remembering arriving at the awards, she added: "It was a frenzy ... The [camera] flashes started going in a way that [they don't] usually. There was an extra kinetic energy there."

But aside from getting people talking, the gown had one very major impact in the technology world: it encouraged Google to create Google Images.

"Years later I found out that because of that night and because of that dress, Google Images was actually created," Lopez revealed in the nine-minute-long video.

"So many people went searching for this and they had no way to search a picture at that time on the Internet, so they created Google Images," she explains, before joking: "I'm just wondering, where is my cheque?".

The claim has been confirmed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

In an essay, The Tinkerer's Apprentice, written in January 2015, Brin wrote: "At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J­Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born."

Lopez continued: "It just goes to show you the power of fashion and the power of those types of moments.

"And I know people try to make it frivolous at times, but what those things do is they give people an inspiration. It puts a beautiful moment out into the world ... one dress can change the trajectory of the way people dress for 10 years."

Donatella Versace, who actually wore the dress before J.Lo, has also reflected on the impact of Lopez in the green dress, saying: "The next day Jennifer was all over the place with people talking about her in that dress. It was one of those moments like Gianni had with Elizabeth Hurley and the safety-pin dress."

Watch the full video here: