Scotland – A dress is having its 15 minutes of fame on social media.
The Daily Mail reports that the picture of the dress was initially posted on Tumblr by Caitlin McNeill, a 21-year-old from Scotland after she shared a photo of it with her friends.
Some people see the dress as white and gold and others as black and blue.
“What happened was two of my close friends were getting married and the mother of the bride took a photo of the dress to send to her daughter,” McNeill said. “When my friend showed the dress to her fiancee, they disagreed on the colour.”
That is when McNeil shared the photo on a Tumblr fan page dedicated to a talent manager Sarah Weichel. Then, without Weichel knowing, or promoting the post, it went explosively viral, the Daily Mail said.
“IT’S A BLUE AND BLACK DRESS! ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME,” wrote Mindy Kaling on Twitter.
Her friend and fellow actor BJ Novak replied writing, “white and gold.”
Recent Oscar winner Julianne Moore jumped in, writing to Novak and Kaling; “what’s the matter with u guys, it’s white and gold.”
Taylor Swift wrote; “I don’t understand this odd dress debate and I feel like it’s a trick somehow. I’m confused and scared. PS it’s OBVIOUSLY BLUE AND BLACK.”
The dress is made by Roman Originals. There are white, pink and red options, all with black lace-but no white version with gold lace.
The Daily Mail notes that the picture is an optical illusion.
The human brain determines the colour of an object by taking in all of the light from the object and ‘throwing away’ the light from surrounding objects. Thus, colour is perceived in relation to the colours of the objects surrounding it.
With the photo of the dress, the surrounding colours are so muddled that the brain isn’t sure what to make of the dress itself.
IOL