Shine OnGeri Halliwell actually wore Jennifer Lopez's iconic Grammy dress first
On Jan. 22, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell wore a pretty printed green chiffon dress to the NRJ Music Awards held in Cannes. She looked sultry, people took photos, and life went on as usual.
Once month and one day later, celebrity newbie and triple threat Jennifer Lopez attended the 2000 Grammy Awards wearing the exact same dress – and the Internet effectively imploded.
You might recall the iconic Versace dress that’s managed to ingrain itself into pop culture history. The dress with the plunging neckline and slit up to there. Yeah, that’s the one.
Curiously, no one seemed to notice that Halliwell wore it first. In honour of the sassiest Spice Girl, we wanted to speculate on the tragic reasons she might have been overlooked. If she got half the attention J.Lo got, we might still be hearing about Ginger Spice on the regular.
Cause 1:
What are the NRJ Music Awards? While we’re sure it’s an honour to win, lets be real – the Grammy Awards receive far more international exposure and media attention. The most prominent reason Halliwell’s dress flopped was simply because of the limited audience.
Cause 2:
The former Spice Girl looked lovely that night but her Rapunzel-like mane covered the most shocking aspect of her dress, the front. She seemed to miss the style memo that you should play up the best feature of an outfit, not cover it up.
Meanwhile, Lopez had half her hair swept up to reveal a perfectly toned and perky body and you could clearly see all the details of the dress sans distractions.
Cause 3: It’s simple matter of colour theory and selecting the right silhouette. In this case, Lopez glowed in the dress. The shades of green paired perfectly with her olive complexion, but the same colours just didn’t pop against Halliwell’s fair skin and light eyes.
As beautiful as both women are, the dress also hung better on J.Lo due to her longer torso. They say you should always wear the dress, not let it wear you, and in Halliwell’s case, the latter is unfortunately true. The dress simply didn’t do it for her petite frame.
Cause 4:
We’re not tailors, but it looks like Geri’s version of the dress fit more loosely than J.Lo’s, making it more flower child than sex goddess. Details like fit can dramatically alter the look and feel of dress, and we suspect Halliwell flew under the radar because the sex appeal wasn’t as overt.
If you look closely, you’ll also notice Lopez’s version revealed a lot more cleavage while Halliwell’s styling made a wardrobe malfunction less likely.
Sure, Halliwell still has her iconic Union Jack mini-dress but we’re still left to wonder if things would be different had her take on the Versace number succeeded.
We all know that buzz breeds opportunities. Perhaps Halliwell would have gone on to release more notable records, start a successful clothing line or date Puff Daddy (or Ben Affleck).
But we’ve got to hand it to Ginger, we never heard a peep from her when J.Lo wore her proverbial sloppy seconds and blew everyone away. She must have been smart enough to know that despite losing the sartorial battle, jealousy is even less flattering.
