Lili Reinhart has taken a shot at archival dressing, and this one deserves to be developed into a full-fledged trend.
The actress appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in a rare Emanuel Ungaro gown from the fashion house's Spring 2001 ready-to-wear collection. Styled by Ib Abdel Nasser, the airy silk dress is already a Y2K time capsule, complete with spaghetti straps, a plunging neckline, intricate beading, and clashing florals that may have signed a peace treaty to make this dress look chaotically harmonious.
Look a little longer, though, and another picture comes into focus. Parts of the gown seem to resemble a photographic negative, with stark black-and-white florals colliding against almost electric patches of pink, green, turquoise, and lilac. Pale curving lines snake across the dress, dividing its contrasting prints and creating an effect that looks like an inverted photograph and a particularly glamorous darkroom experiment.
Lili Reinhart's Ungaro Dress Is Playing Tricks on Our Eyes
The optical illusion becomes especially convincing around the bodice.
One section features colourful florals against black, while neighbouring areas seemingly reverse the formula, turning flowers pale against dark backgrounds before exploding back into saturated colour. The hand-beaded embellishments add another dimension under studio lighting, catching the light as Reinhart moves and making certain details appear almost illuminated.
It is not known whether Emanuel Ungaro intended the original print to resemble photographic negatives, but either way, the dress is positively timeless. More than 25 years after its runway debut, the visual comparison is hard to unsee, especially if you stare at it for 30 seconds and proceed to blink rapidly while looking at a blank wall.
Perhaps the best part is that the illusion does not require any actual digital trickery. The archival silk and clever design are doing all the manual editing by themselves.
The 2001 Gown Looks Right at Home in 2026
Reinhart wore the vintage piece while promoting The Love Hypothesis, her new romantic comedy adaptation of Ali Hazelwood's bestselling novel alongside Tom Bateman.
That makes the Y2K selection particularly fitting. Reinhart and Abdel Nasser have been dipping into the visual language of romantic comedies during the film's press tour, including a recent butter-yellow Georges Hobeika gown that nodded to Kate Hudson's famous look in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The Ungaro dress takes that nostalgia somewhere less literal, trading a specific screen reference for the Y2K era itself. In other words, it may not be attached to a famous onscreen heroine, but it definitely looks fit for a rom-com of its own.
Rather than recreating one recognisable movie moment, Reinhart has pulled an actual garment from the period into the present. Its body-skimming silhouette, maximalist florals, spaghetti straps, and brave colour combinations capture a time currently being mined relentlessly for fashion inspiration.
Yet the gown doesn't look trapped in 2001. Under the lights of a 2026 television studio, those contrasting prints almost resemble something produced with an image filter. Turns out fashion's latest optical illusion didn't need artificial intelligence, Photoshop, or even a particularly clever camera angle.
Through the lens of an era that decided to give Y2K a second shot, this Ungaro negative still makes one very positive impression.
