Optical illusion: Dress colour debate goes global. A debate between family and friends about the colour of a dress for a wedding has become an internet sensation.
Alana MacInnes, of Uist, and Caitlin McNeill, from Colonsay, sought views on Tumblr about whether it was gold and white or blue.
The debate was picked up by fashion bloggers, Buzzfeed, the Washington Post and US magazine Wired.
On Twitter the debate’s hash tag #TheDress is the top trending tag. Wired has even looked at the science behind why people are seeing the dress as a gold and white, blue and white, blue and blue or blue and black.
Professors have also joined the scientific discussion on Twitter, while celebrities including US singer Taylor Swift and reality TV star Kim Kardashian have been tweeting about the debate.
Buzzfeed’s online story about the dress has been shared more than 20 million times.
Dr Paul Coxon, a physicist at Cambridge University, has tweeted that if the dress was combined with social media users’ love of cats “the universe would explode”.
The picture of the dress was taken by Ms MacInnes and posted on social media by Ms McNeill.
Ms McNeill asked her followers: “Guys please help me – is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we are freaking… out.”
Ms McNeill told Newsbeat that it all started when her friend’s mother wore the dress at a wedding.
She said: “Two of my very good friends were getting married and they asked me to put together a band to come and play at the wedding
“This was a wedding on the tiny island that we come from on the west coast of Scotland called Colonsay and about 100 people were there.
“A week beforehand the bride had been sent by her mother a picture of the dress she was going to wear and when the bride showed her fiance, they disagreed about what colour it was.
“She was like, ‘It’s white and gold’ and he said, ‘It’s blue and black’.
“So they posted it on Facebook to try and see what their friends were saying but that caused carnage on Facebook.”
She said they had forgotten about the dress until the mother of the bride wore it at the wedding, when it was “obviously blue and black”.
So what colour is this dress exactly? I guess the debate continues.
Content courtesy of www.bbc.com