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The picture was initially posted to Tumblr by a 21-year-old singer named Caitlin McNeill, who lives on the tiny Scottish island of Colonsay and noted that the dress shown in the picture was worn at a friend's wedding by the mother of the bride:
The dress was worn by the bride's mother. McNeill and her friends first realized there was something different about the dress when the mother sent her daughter the now-famous photo. "What happened was two of my close friends were actually getting married and the mother of the bride took a photo of the dress to send to her daughter," McNeill explained. "When my friend showed the dress to her fiancee, they disagreed on the color." The bride then posted the picture on Facebook and her friends continued to debate the color of the dress.
McNeill explained that the picture was a dress was worn to her friends' wedding. In the photo, some people see the dress as white and gold while others see it as blue and black.
Fortunately for the Internet, there actually is an answer to this color conundrum: The highlighted bit of the dress's darker top stripe reads through an eyedropper tool as hex code #806D48, which is a gold-based tone. However, a lighter portion of the sleeve (described by many as white) reads as hex code #A0A1B9, a heavily blue-tinged color:
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Thank you all for taking part in my 'white and gold' 'black and blue' dress experiment. Read on for info. Thanks. pic.twitter.com/44Jb00FAno
— BradTheLadLong (@BradTheLadLong) February 27, 2015
Although the opposite theory (i.e., that colors can influence emotions) has been studied, we turned up no evidence that the theory had been tested in the opposite direction (i.e., that perception of colors can be an indicator of one's emotional state). The Twitter user in question possibly misinterpreted the widespread belief that colors affect emotions in taking advantage of a viral phenomenon.
Ultimately, it's far less likely that the image is a mood diagnostic rather than a mild jape involving the power of suggestion. Or, as the Washington Post noted, "The answer has something to do with science. And eyes. And color and lights and color balances. And Photoshop. And many other matters that over-intellectualize something as delightfully absurd as a color-changing dress. Some things don't need to be explained."
Last updated: 26 February 2015