Brooks Nader Stuns in a Dress Once Worn by Whitney Houston

Brooks Nader has nothing but the greatest love of all for Marc Bouwer. The designer pulled a ruby red velvet body-hugging dress from his 1996 collection out of the archives for the SI Swimsuit model to wear to IMG Model’s vice president Luiz Mattos’s 50th birthday party in New York City last weekend. The dress was originally worn by the late Whitney Houston. (Shades of 2022 SI Swimsuit cover model Kim Kardashian wearing Marilyn Monroe’s 1962 “Happy Birthday” dress to the Met Gala last month, for sure.)

The “I Will Always Love You” songstress wore it to the BET Walk of Fame Awards in Washington, D.C., in 1996, where she also happened to sing happy birthday to her father in the audience. As for Nader’s outing, she painted the town red for the agent’s masquerade bash at Boom Boom Room in the Standard Hotel. Keeping her brunette locks sleek with a slight wave behind her ear, she also accessorized with a black mask, hoop earrings and silver heels.

Bouwer certainly gave his seal of approval of Nader’s full look and posted a carousel on Instagram. The first image is of her arriving to the party followed by a magazine clipping with a 1996 runway image of model Julie Anderson in the dress with Houston wearing a version in chocolate brown. (Fun fact: fellow Si Swimsuit model Camille Kostek borrowed the brown gown from Bouwer’s archives last February for the NFL Honors awards show.) To complete the post, he shared a video of Anderson gliding down the runway in it.

Hopefully Nader didn’t have too much trouble maneuvering inside the star-studded soiree, which she attended with her sister Sarah Jane. On Instagram, Nader shared some photos from inside that included her sis sitting next to Justin Theroux and another with Bebe Rexha. Other bold-face names attending the event included Gigi and Bella Hadid (along with mom Yolanda), Precious Lee and Meghan Roche.