Some stories don’t need a twist—just time. Eighteen years after the blonde bombshell Anna Nicole Smith left this world in a haze of pills, perfume, and headlines, her daughter, Dannielynn Birkhead, just walked the line between memory and mythology by stepping into one of her mother’s most iconic dresses. Not a replica. The real thing. Black, backless, bedazzled—with enough plunge to drop jaws and enough history to turn flashbulbs into time machines.
It happened at the 2025 Barnstable Brown Gala in Kentucky, the same Derby-adjacent soirée where Anna Nicole once held court in that exact halter-cut gown back in 2004. Back then, it was chaos and champagne. Now? It’s lineage in sequins.
The dress: a cling-to-every-curve black number with silver sparkles that catch the light and don’t let go. A front slit says “glamour,” but the plunge says “danger.” It’s pure Anna—loud, seductive, a little tragic. And now it’s Dannielynn’s.
She swept her blonde hair into a loose updo, letting side-bangs kiss her cheeks in a dead-ringer nod to her mother’s old-school Hollywood aesthetic. And while the look turned heads, it was her quiet quote to the press that cracked the façade: “This is the closest to a hug I can get from her.” That’s not just fashion. That’s elegy stitched into fabric.
By her side was Larry Birkhead, father, former paparazzo, and now keeper of the Smith legacy. He posted the moment to Instagram with a caption drenched in sentiment and subtle bravado: “Kicking off @kentuckyderby weekend with Dannielynn. First up, The Barnstable-Brown Gala. Dannielynn is wearing Anna Nicole’s dress that she wore 21 years ago to this same event. Life full circle.”
And it is. A circle drawn in red carpets and raised glasses.
Larry later told People it hit him hard: “The last time I saw that dress was on Anna,” he said. Back then, it was all flashbulbs and flirtation. Now, it’s his daughter carrying that same spotlight, minus the chaos.
As for Dannielynn, she isn’t just playing dress-up. This isn’t a teen rummaging through vintage for the thrill of it. This is myth-making. Personal archaeology. She’s been wearing Anna’s clothes for years—from a Guess shirt covered in black-and-white prints of her mother in 2023, to a vintage Gianfranco Ferre dress worn by Janet Jackson last year. But this one? This one’s different. This one’s sacred.
Larry puts it bluntly: “She could literally pick out an outfit a day for the rest of her life and never wear the same thing twice.” Anna’s closet was a museum of indulgence. Now, it’s Dannielynn’s inheritance—not just in threads, but in persona. And for the first time, she’s starting to explore it.
This year’s Barnstable Brown Gala wasn’t just a pre-Derby party. It was a séance in sequins. A teenager conjuring her mother with fabric and flash. And somewhere, if the cosmos has any sense of poetry, Anna Nicole smiled—lipstick loud, laugh louder.
Last modified: May 6, 2025
