The dress

The dress was a 2015 online viral phenomenon centred on a photograph of a dress. Viewers disagreed on whether the dress was blue and black, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception and became the subject of scientific investigations into neuroscience and vision science. The phenomenon originated in a photograph of a dress posted on the social networking service Facebook. The dress was black and blue, but the conditions of the photograph caused many to perceive it as white and gold, creating debate. Within a week, more than ten million tweets had mentioned the dress. The retailer of the dress, Roman Originals, reported a surge in sales and produced a one-off version in white and gold sold for charity. Origin In February 2015, about a week before the wedding of Grace and Keir Johnston, of Colonsay, Scotland, the bride's mother, Cecilia Bleasdale, took a photograph of a dress at Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet north of Chester, England. Bleasdale intended to wear the dress at the wedding and sent the photograph to Grace. The dress was coloured blue with black lace. However, Grace told her mother she perceived it in the photograph as white with gold lace. After Grace posted the photograph on Facebook, her friends also disagreed; some saw it as white with gold, while others saw it as blue with black. For a week, the debate became well known in Colonsay, a small island community.