Dannielynn Birkhead is honoring her late mother, Anna Nicole Smith, with a touching, intimate fashion decision.
As the model attended the annual Barnstable Brown Gala on Friday, May 2, the eve before Saturday’s 2025 Kentucky Derby, she decided to wear the exact same gown her mom wore to the event in 2004.
It was a dress that reached the floor, featuring a plunging V-neckline with straps embellished with sparkling crystals.
- Dannielynn Birkhead wore her late mother Anna Nicole Smith’s 2004 Barnstable Brown Gala gown, honoring her memory 21 years later.
- Larry Birkhead, the teenager’s father, stored his late wife’s dress for years and found the moment emotional seeing his daughter wear it.
- Dannielynn described wearing her mom’s dress as the closest thing to a hug she can get.
Dannielynn Birkhead paid tribute to her late mother by wearing the same dress she wore to the Barnstable Brown Gala, 21 years ago
Image credits: larryanddannielynn
In an interview with Access Hollywood, Birkhead shared a little insight on what this event meant to her and how the occasion held such a special meaning.
“This is the closest to a hug I can get from her,” she said.
Larry Birkhead, her father and Smith’s husband, appeared just as emotional as he shared the moment on social media.
Image credits: larryanddannielynn
“Dannielynn is wearing Anna Nicole’s dress that she wore 21 years ago to this same event,” he wrote. “Life full circle. She said she chose the dress because it was her Mom’s and ‘super cool.’”
And it seems as if the father-daughter duo were preparing for this moment for a long time.
It was a “special” moment for both Dannielynn and her father
Image credits: Jeff Snyder/Getty Images
Image credits: Jeff Snyder/Getty Images
As Larry told PEOPLE, he’s had the dress stored away “for years” and finally seeing it on his daughter tugged on both of their heartstrings.
“It was emotional because the last time I saw that dress was on Anna,” he said, who had met the late actress at the Barnstable Gala in 2003.
Her father had kept the dress stored away for many years
Image credits: larryanddannielynn
After Smith passed away due to an accidental dr–g overdose when her daughter was only 5 months old, the 52-year-old recalled how Dannielynn gravitated towards the dress, always managing to put her hands on the material as “a little girl.”
“Now that she’s actually old enough to wear it, it just seems surreal that we’re at this moment,” he said.
While the 18-year-old was the one to pick out her mother’s gown, Larry mentioned it was “a little edgier for her than most dresses she wears.”
“I think she’s doing a fashion experiment for herself,” he shared. “Also, I think it’s really meaningful for her to wear. I’m just glad she’s going through and starting to wear some of [Smith’s clothes] because she could literally pick out an outfit a day for the rest of her life and never wear the same thing twice with everything.”
It also appeared as if Larry spends “over $200,000 in storage bills” in order to preserve his late wife’s clothes and belongings for his daughter.
Anna Nicole Smith passed away when Dannielynn was just 5 months old
Image credits: Larry Birkhead
Image credits: larryanddannielynn
“[I] just hope that she would appreciate some of these things someday,” he said. “She’s just now starting to get into the curiosity of some of the fashion and things in her mom’s world.”
He continued, “When somebody passes away, you think, ‘Oh, I’m not getting rid of anything. And then you go through the emotions of, okay, do I really want this? Do I really need this? … and you think, ‘Well, if there’s just one thing in here that she can connect with, that gives her a sense of who her mom was.
The 18-year-old is just now starting to step into her mother’s world of fashion
Image credits: larryanddannielynn
“So it was really special that she picked out the dress to wear.”
Dannielynn and her father have made it an annual tradition to go to the Kentucky Derby every year, with the teenager’s debut happening when she was just three years old, as Larry described it as “born out of the babysitter cancelling on me the first year I brought her.”
When it was clear everyone joined the little girl’s presence, saying she was “cute,” her father decided to continue bringing her to the event, especially because “she wasn’t that much trouble.”
“Then people started looking for us and then the outfits had to be bigger,” he added.
“She has her moms smile,” one comment read
While many fans couldn’t get over how much Dannielynn looks like her mom—right down to their identical gums—others chimed in with some not-so-asked-for advice, suggesting things like “gum surgery” or telling her to “brush her teeth.”
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