What color is this dress?

[7,052,770]

I see white and gold, but I can understand the people saying blue -- it may be very light blue.

I don't see black at all though -- it's very obviously gold in the stripes. (?)

[7,052,770]

Are you really seeing the stripes as black??

I can kinda see a blue tint -- my assumption at first glance was that the dress is in shadow and probably is a little lighter in real life, but if it's not the case, it could be a light blue -- but I see the gold stripes as plain as day...


EDIT: Apparently Vox agrees with me: (not that that's always a good sign )

[7,052,770]

So just to clarify, you really see black and not gold? That's just unimaginable to me...

[7,052,770]

So just to clarify, you really see black and not gold? That's just unimaginable to me...

It's black in bad lighting.  The fact that the dress is literally blue and black in real life kind of proves that.

Again, where is the white?

Like I said a few posts ago, I think people are assuming the dress is in shadow, and a white dress in shadow would look like that in a photograph.

If you instead assume that the dress in bathed in bright light (which it apparently is), I can see how it might be blue.

Still not seeing any black though, even when I adjust my assumption for bright light.

[7,052,770]

Wouldn't it be the most amazing thing ever if Jimmy Kimmel were somehow involved in this, like if he came out Monday with and held up a specially-made white and gold version of the dress and said "See, it really WAS white and gold all along!"

[7,052,770]

You seriously see that shiny gold as black? That's the most baffling thing here.

The white/blue thing is easily explained as a difference of whether it's in shadow or in light, but I just don't see how anyone can say the stripes are black. I've raised this point several times in this thread and no one on the blue/black squad has offered an explanation on how the gold/brown (not even a dark shade of it!) look black...

[7,052,770]

I've raised this point several times in this thread and no one on the blue/black squad has offered an explanation on how the gold/brown (not even a dark shade of it!) look black...

It looks black because it's black. Next question.

As you are aware, this has never been about what the dress actually is in real life. I want to know how you look at a golden-brown color like that, not even a dark one, and think it's black. Do you honestly see it as black, or do you have some kind of internal thought process of "hmmm, those stripes look gold because that's a really reflective material that would be black if I saw it in person under normal lighting conditions" ?

I guess what I'm saying is, do you actually see this as black, or do you agree that this color is gold-brown-ish and just translate that as the stripe is probably black?

[7,052,770]

I saw it as black and blue before I even knew what it was supposed to be. That's because my eyes and brain can perceive colors correctly. It's ok that you can't; many disabled people have gone on to do great things.

So ... you do see the square I posted as black?

[7,052,770]

Like I said before, look at the background.  Look at it in the three pictures above, in fact.  Sure, the one on the left now appears so washed out that the dress is now gold and pale blue.  But can you make out anything at all in the background now?  No, because the whole photo is totally bleached out.  Meaning that this could not possibly be the dress's colors.  And you still can't see any source of this 'blue light'.  But now look at the photo on the right.  You can actually start to make out some details in the background - arguably even somebody's hair - because the photo has been adjusted to its subjects' correct colors.  Our brains could instantly tell, using the background as a cue, that the photo was too bright, and therefore our brains should increase the contrast and darken that brown into black.

Sorry, I think the most natural assumption is that there is very bright light in the background, implying that what we're seeing is in shadow, because the lit-up background implies that all the light is behind the dress.

Other than just being directly told, I see no context clues to assume there's an additional (and also unusually-colored) light source behind the photographer.

Does that explain why so many people are assuming the dress is lighter?

[7,052,770]

I saw it as black and blue before I even knew what it was supposed to be. That's because my eyes and brain can perceive colors correctly. It's ok that you can't; many disabled people have gone on to do great things.

So ... you do see the square I posted as black?

Oh, are we posting random shapes and colors that have nothing to do with the dress? Let me try. Do you see this trapezoid as lavender?

...

This is directly taken from a pixel of the top stripe. And I tried to go for one of the middle, not just the most obvious bright one.



The fact that you're dodging the question strongly implies that you agree this color of the square isn't black.

This leads to a second question -- how did you know on sight that the material was something that is THAT reflective? Most black fabrics wouldn't reflect that much light as to appear shiny gold. In fact, until this meme came out I probably didn't realize there were any.

Maybe there's a correlation between people who are good at recognizing fancy fabrics on sight and what color you perceive? I'm sure if I saw the photo and saw like "hmmm, that looks like XYZ fabric that looks shiny under light" I might have guessed the stripes are actually black. Unfortunately, I know virtually nothing about fabric types.

[7,052,770]

Yeah, it's obviously not black. I understand that the white/blue thing might be debatable, but no amount of lighting can turn a real black into that brownish gold.

It could (and apparently it did) if it were some weird, extremely reflective fabric that was lit in an unusual way, but I certainly wouldn't default to that assumption over the much simpler "the stripes appear to be gold/brown and thus are probably gold/brown."

But I know almost nothing about dresses and dress materials, so that's probably where the misunderstanding lies.