Stupid liars.

Some of the brightest RGB values of the ornaments on the original pic: 129, 113, 77
Official RGB code for Gold: 255, 215, 0

In both cases the most domintant color is red, followed by green and least prominent color is blue. It's gold or at least gold-ish. Fact. There is no way in hell the these RGB values can possibly be "actually" black (no matter what the dress' real color is). And I'm sure that all people who perceive or claim to perceive the gold as black wouldn't do so if they saw the color isolated from the context. And yes, out of context the "white" is technically a light blue.

An interesting thing I just noticed, though: if you invert the colors of the entire photo the gold and white just get swapped. The white part becomes gold, the gold part becomes blue. Surely not a coincidence. I can imagine that there's something about the color combo that causes certain people to perceive the colors incorrectly but there's no way the actual colors on the picture are black and blue, even if that actually is the real colors of the dress and it's just the camera that messed up somehow.

It's a shitty photo and a rather ugly dress. Interestingly people mostly agree on those two facts...

I see white and bronze. And it seems this thread proves that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder.

NEWS: Controversial study shows LCDs damage eyesight.

Technically, white, black and gold are not colors...

The riddle has been solved (dress is blue and black) but a photo is a highly unreliable source for determining color so arguing on the base of a crappy photo is pointless. A camera is a relatively primitive tool that is easily overchallenged, not only with color but with detail as well. Cameras will either pick up detail in the light or in the shadow but not both. That's why I only paint from life directly, because the human eye allows for an amalgamation of unlimited shifts in focus and you can only do that when you're in front of the real thing and then you can also see the color of the light sources and how it affects local color. White snow turns blue/violet in the shadows on a sunny day, following the rule that warm light creates cool shadows. On the other hand, cool light creates warm shadows. The color in the shadows is further influenced by reflected light so the color of the surface the light bounces off from is a big factor. It's very educational to paint under different circumstances, moonlight, artificial light of varying temperature, dappled sunlight, diffused sunlight and so on.

One more very important thing: The color you perceive is hugely affected by what's next to it. It's hard to determine any color without putting it into relation with the surrounding colors. Which is why my instructors kept saying you don't paint the color you see, you paint the relationship of the colors you see. This can't be theoretically understood, only via practice.

I'm surprised no one realize this: if you stare at something dark (you can try closing your eyes) and immediately look at the dress is blue and black; however if you stare at something really white and then look at the dress if white and gold (well, kinda like really light blue and gold). Also, it helps to see the blue and black if you watch the dress from the bottom to the top and from the top to the bottom for white and gold. I seriously was thinking the damn image was a gif or something at the beginning xD Finally discovered why it kept changing on me :P

PS: Same monitor and computer.

The pen is blue. The pen is blue! The goddamn pen is blue!

The fact that so many people see black here is the exact reason why I advise people not to buy black paint for painting pictures because they'll lazily look at stuff and say "hm that's obviously black" and make a straight grab for the black tube of paint, and they'll not learn to see or mix color as it appears.
I doesn't matter if the dress in RL is "black", on the photo it appears as a low hue/low saturation yellow orange ("gold" is not a color).

But even if we set the photo aside and I had the real dress in front of me I'd not say "that's black" if I had to make a painting of it because I have kicked black pigment off my palette and use only chromatic colors. Here's an example of a "black" car I painted a while ago, directly from the real thing. I didn't see black but spectrum colors in varying degrees of saturation and hue. This painting was made with 7 chromatic colors (2 yellows, two reds and 3 blues)

If you want to learn to see colors, stop using silly labels like lavender, mauve, black, white, gold etc.... try to define what chromatic color you see. If you can't place the color on the "rainbow" spectrum, then you don't actually know what you're looking at. You can mix a full spectrum with only 6 chromatic colors:

-a yellow that leans toward yellow green
-a yellow that leans toward yellow orange
-a red that leans toward red orange
-a red that leans toward red violet
-a blue that leans toward blue violet
-a blue that leans toward blue green

3 colors isn't enough btw, only one yellow red and blue are insufficient to mix a full spectrum.

PS: Of course it makes sense to sell the dress as "black" and sell this car as "black" but I'm not talking about what pigment the original objects were coated with, I'm talking about what colors one sees when looking at these objects.

I've been through this in the morning with my gf looking at the same screen, I clearly see blue and black/[url=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinkohle#mediaviewer/File:Anthrazit.jpg]antrazit[/url], she sees white and gold.

I don't understand how anyone can see white and gold there.

Edit: Ok, on this screen the top black bar looks quite pale and I can understand how some people interpret it as gold with a bit of mind bending, but the other stripes are clearly black and blue.

I say blue-violet and yellow-orange are the correct answer so in my opinion both blue & black and white & gold are wrong.

Interesting to note that white & gold was a heraldic faux pax - for obvious reasons. Personally, I would have decreed blue & black as equally incorrect because when it's dark, blue & black look just as crap and hard to distinguish as white & gold in the sunlight.

Here's a better photo of the dress, I still see it as blue & yellow orange. Blue with ever so slight tendency toward blue violet in relationship to the other part of the dress, if compared to elements outside the dress one can see it as blue with tendency toward blue green just as well.

I mean a a very low saturation and low value yellow orange but it's still yellow orange in my eyes.

Its gone now 'sniff'

Don't cry, there will be more. Oh, wait, you're not crying...

The color of the pen that I hold in my hand is... r-r-r-r-r-royal blue!!!

It is so. On the other hand "Blond" is not a color, it's an illusion most of the time

Blondes are an illusion? Oh my God... my ex-girlfriend WAS imaginary! O_O