# What color is this dress? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 27, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742 "2015-02-27T02:07:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/21 "2015-02-27T03:09:15Z")
The color corrected one looks vaguely gold to me…but the original just looks black and blue. And a very definite, deep blue, too. It will never look gold or white to me. ☹ I, too, feel like there’s a glitch in the matrix. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/22 "2015-02-27T03:11:09Z")
Color (ha!) me confused as well. It looks clearly blue and black to me. In the bottom left there is a black and white pattern. Part of the blue of the dress meets the white of that pattern and is obviously a different color. For the people that see white/gold, does the white look the same as the white of the black and white pattern? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/23 "2015-02-27T03:12:24Z")
Ok, if I stare at the light parts of the background for a while, it will shift to blue for a second, and then fade back to light. I get what’s happening, but I’m still not comfortable with it. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/24 "2015-02-27T03:15:44Z")
Wait a minute, I thought this was one of those “did you hear they took gullible out of the dictionary” jokes! People are actually really seeing it as blue and black and aren’t just pulling my leg? (ETA - within the last hour this has EXPLODED Facebook.) ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/25 "2015-02-27T03:19:21Z")
HOLY SHIT. I just wrote that, sent it to some friends, went back to the exact same page, and now I see it blue and… not maybe black but gray. Definitely blue. I… I don’t even know how to feel anything anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/26 "2015-02-27T03:21:38Z")
I can’t make it go back to white and gold! ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/27 "2015-02-27T03:22:18Z")
I don’t see black at all. I see light blue, almost lavender, and gold. Nothing I do (scroll, stare at it, reload it) makes it change one whit. ---
**Author:** ![Ruby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/13edae/32.png) [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/28 "2015-02-27T03:24:09Z")
It looks pale blue (like white under poor lighting) and gold to me. I don’t see black anywhere, even washed out black. I, too, thought it was some kind of meme/joke. There has to be an explanation if people are really interpreting those colors as blue and black. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/29 "2015-02-27T03:26:18Z")
I am not fucking around. It CHANGED. ---
**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/30 "2015-02-27T03:31:34Z")
This image is spreading like wildfire. At first all I saw was white/gold but now I’m seeing blue/black, using the same image. I can’t change the colour at will. If I take a break and look again, most of the time it’s white/gold. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/31 "2015-02-27T03:33:56Z")
Is the question what color is the dress in real life or what color does it appear to be in the photo? In the photo it looks like it’s a medium purplish blue (sort of a periwinkle blue) with brown or dark gold trim. I’m not seeing the colors change as I scroll up and down, look away and look back, etc. The lighting is so bad that I wouldn’t feel confident in saying what color the dress _really_ is, but the photo is so overexposed looking that I’d guess it’s actually darker than it looks. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/32 "2015-02-27T03:35:23Z")
No, see. It isn’t the kind of change, if you see it change, where it kinda could be a dark gold or a light brownish black. It looks _different_. I keep looking away, and at different colors, or at the light parts of the pictures itself, but I can’t change it back. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/33 "2015-02-27T03:39:51Z")
In that picture it looks blue and brown to me. In every other picture (except the filtered one that shows me what you all are seeing) it is definitely blue and black. I don’t see how anyone could see that as white and gold. That’s just weird to me. Wow. this has to be something to do with how different monitors are showing the colors. Or maybe whether your screen is back-lit. . . ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/34 "2015-02-27T03:40:30Z")
Waitaminnit. Is this a debate about the actual color of the dress, or the color people see when they look at an image on a computer screen? Has there been any testimony from people who claim to have actually seen the dress? Are there multiple live witnesses who also disagree about the colors? For whatever reason, I can’t view anything at the buzzfeed site linked by OP, but a quick google search finds it all over the place. How true to the original image are any of these other images likely to be? (FTR, I’m seeing darkish-blue and dark-brownish-blackish.) But both colored areas also show highlights (literally, areas where the light reflects off the fabric differently due to the angle), and these areas look pale-bluish-white and kinda-golden-brown. Further, it the viewing angle of the computer viewer towards the screen makes a big difference, and the technology of the screen probably matters too. The colors of just about everything on my computer screen change depending on the angle at which I’m viewing the screen. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/35 "2015-02-27T03:54:33Z")
How does ANYONE see white and gold??? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/36 "2015-02-27T03:55:33Z")
Blue & brownish grey for me. Doesn’t change. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/37 "2015-02-27T03:58:08Z")
[This](http://swiked.tumblr.com/post/112164479015/can-we-have-more-pictures-of-the-dress-please-we) is purportedly to be the actual dress in question, from the original person who put it up on Tumblr. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/38 "2015-02-27T04:05:35Z")
I sure hope it is - the one I first saw was pretty hideous. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/39 "2015-02-27T04:08:40Z")
It looks blue and… not black, necessarily, but certainly darker than gold, and it’s so obviously blue that I spent a few seconds in major WTF-are-you-people-trying-to-pull-one-on-me mode. But I guess that’s what makes it such a big thing. Also, maybe a lot of people have crappy and/or badly calibrated monitors? As the color adjustment version shows, that makes a _huge_ difference. I kind of want to go downstairs and check it on my color-calibrated Dell now. But that’s so far away… ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742/40 "2015-02-27T04:13:42Z")
Now I see both. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-color-is-this-dress/713742.md?page=3)