Elizabeth Hurley can still fit into the Versace safety pin dress she first wore 25 years ago.
The English model and actress made headlines around the world when she stepped out in the revealing black number, held together with oversized gold pins, when she accompanied then-boyfriend Hugh Grant to the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994.
To mark the anniversary of the iconic garment, Versace creative director Donatella Versace has recreated the outfit. However, Elizabeth, 53, is adamant she can still slip into the original.
“I don’t exercise, but I am very active,” she said in an interview for U.S. Harper’s Bazaar magazine. “But just because it still fits doesn’t mean I would wear it today – it wouldn’t be appropriate!”
Elizabeth went on to describe how Donatella’s updated safety pin dress is much “more demure” than the one her late brother Gianni Versace dreamed up, with the new ensemble featuring draped fabric across the bodice and one long sleeve.
And even though the Versace dress launched the brunette beauty onto the global stage, leading to her scoring a gig as a brand ambassador for Estee Lauder, she insisted that she had no idea that the little black dress would have the power to change the course of her career.
“I was so unprepared for what happened that night… I urgently needed to find a dress to wear for Hugh’s premiere, and in those days I had no idea about fashion,” Elizabeth recalled, adding that she ended up collecting the dress from a PR executive’s office. “I remember going to an office where they literally fished a dress out of a white plastic bag… I took it home and did my own hair and make-up, fighting Hugh for the mirror, which wasn’t even full-length, in our tiny one-bedroom flat. It was all very unglamorous compared to how things get done these days.”
