Let me take you back to a somewhat simpler time. The year was 2015. It was February. Lindsay Lohan was still a gossip fixture. Twitter didn’t totally suck yet. There were rumors about Prince Harry dating Emma Watson. Tom Hiddleston was trying to break the Internet a year before the Summer of Tiddlebanging. Golden escalators were yet to be ridden down. Like I said, it was a simpler time. But, the Internet still existed, so we were all arguing about something, and in Feb. 2015, it was the Great Dress-Color Debate.
Friends, 10 years have passed since the infamous blue and black vs. silver and gold dress debate. Quick refresher: a picture of a royal blue and black lace body con dress went viral after a mother-of-the-bride sent it to her daughter, who saw it as silver and gold-colored. The Scottish woman then posted the pic to Facebook to get others’ opinions. It ended up on Buzzfeed, and boom, it went viral. In honor of the debate’s 10th anniversary, Jenna Bush Hager decided to wear it on the Today show. She wore the actual dress, which was borrowed from Buzzfeed, who now owns it.
Bush Hager threw off a white robe to reveal the controversial frock, saying, “It is clearly blue and black, right? And that’s what made this thing so mind-blowing because the answer is not what we expect.”
Noting that she views the viral image as white and gold, Bush Hager used optometrist Dr. Sarah Klibanoff to explain why the photo was the “perfect storm to create an optical illusion,” explaining that it had to do with the fact that the dress was in shadow.
“If a person, let’s say, saw the dress in a shadow, there’s more blue light in a shadow,” she said. “I’m going to filter out that blue light and I’m actually going to see the dress much more white and gold.”
The Roman Originals dress immediately sold out back in 2015 and had plenty of celebrities chiming in online, with Taylor Swift writing on Twitter at the time, “It’s OBVIOUSLY BLUE AND BLACK.”
“Obviously this dress is blue and black, but in the photo, in some of the photos, I saw white and gold,” Bush Hager said, jokingly adding, “All I have to say is horizontal stripes aren’t great on anybody.”
Bush Hager actually borrowed the dress from the offices of BuzzFeed, the site that originally shared the viral post.
“It’s no longer available because, you know what, it was for sale 10 years ago,” she quipped. “I had a 1-year-old.”
And while co-anchors Carson Daly and Willie Geist insisted they saw black and blue, Bush Hager and Savannah Guthrie were firmly team white and gold.
“You wear it well, that’s all that matters,” Daly told Bush Hager.
However, weatherman Al Roker was not as invested, complaining, “Where was anybody in the control room about a minute ago? We could have ended this a lot earlier.”
Jenna wears the dress well, but I would not have paired it with those boots. That’s all I’m saying! It’s kinda funny that they brought the dress back, simply because it’s been so long since I’ve thought about it. I cannot believe that it’s been a decade since this debate took place. That was all over the Internet for like two days before I even caught wind of it. My coworker was the one who showed it to me because she was asking everyone in our building, lol. I was always on team blue and black. I never saw it as silver and gold, no matter how hard I tried to.
Because lately, it feels like we can’t have nice things, there is a bit of a terrible addendum to this story. Turns out that the groom in the wedding the dress was worn to attempted to murder his wife and is now serving a four and a half year sentence in Glasgow. Anyway, remember all of the think pieces that explained that the color pattern you saw meant that your brain or eyes processed things a certain way? Man, I miss the days of arguing about things like what color a dress appears to be.
Jenna Bush Hager Wears the Dress That Divided the Internet on 10th Anniversary of the Viral Debate https://t.co/zbunjTo9zE
— People (@people) February 20, 2025
I don’t care what color it is it’s just an ugly dress.
Exactly!
I spontaneousluy uttered, ” who cares, it’s fucking hideous!”
Ten years after the debate, there’s still no debate for me: this ugly dress is blue and black!
I actually think about this at least once or twice a year. I think I looked it up last fall, lol. When I first saw the image, I saw blue and black, but now I can actually see both.
I could never see black and blue in the original picture! The other optical illusions with the shoe color and the spinning ballerina works but never that dress!!
My mom sent me the original picture about a month ago asking what color I saw. She was just a tad late to the party.
White and gold btw.
I see blue and black. Lort. NBC lost Hoda, but kept GW’s horrid daughter. Soooo many hard working, talented people deserve that job, but the peacock is going for the Donald (Jr), Eric, Ivana hire.
🎯