1920s Cleo Flapper Dress in Black & Gold Flapper Boutique The actual dress was black and blue. The confusion came from how lighting and color perception tricked people's brains, making some see it as white and gold. It became a viral example Dressgate: If you saw THAT dress as white your brain was working overtime Three years of research into #thedress, digested BPS In 2015, a photograph of a dress went viral, dividing viewers over whether its colors were blue and black or white and gold. This optical illusion highlighted differences in human color