It’s been 10 years since the internet argued over whether a striped dress was blue and black or white and gold — and the Today show is trying to settle the debate once and for all.
The series’ hosts reignited the debate on the Thursday, February 20, episode of the NBC morning show in honor of the viral moment’s 10th anniversary. Jenna Bush Hager resolved the feud by wearing none other than the actual dress — which is blue and black — live on air.
“Obviously, this dress is blue and black. But in the photo, in some of the photos, I saw white and gold,” she stated, receiving support from Savannah Guthrie. Carson Daly and Willie Geist, however, firmly remained on team blue and black.
“Taylor Swift herself saw black and blue,” Daly, 51, stated, referring to when Swift, 35, shared which colors she saw via X in February 2015. “Clearly that’s the answer ’cause Taylor’s never wrong.”
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Despite disagreeing on the colors with Bush Hager, 43, Daly told his fellow Today personality that she looked “great” in the dress. According to Bush Hager, the dress was a loan from BuzzFeed’s New York City office, as the garment is no longer available for purchase.
The dress drama began in 2015 after a woman named Cecilia Bleasdale sent a photo of the blue and black dress to her daughter, Grace, to get her opinion. Grace, however, saw the dress as white and gold. The photo caught the attention of former BuzzFeed Community Manager Cates Holderness, who subsequently launched the online debate by creating a BuzzFeed poll.
“I turned to my colleagues and just said, ‘Hey, guys, what color is this dress?’ Within five minutes, there were 20 people behind my desk just screaming at each other,” Holderness said in a video package aired during Thursday’s episode. “And I figured if we were yelling about it, maybe the rest of the internet would.”
Ten years later, white and gold continues to lead the original BuzzFeed poll with 2.5 million votes. Blue and black, meanwhile, has only garnered 1.2 million votes despite being the dress’ true colors.
In Thursday’s Today video package, optometrist Dr. Sarah Klibanoff explained that the dress colors people see depend on how their brain perceives the photo’s background lighting. “It was the perfect storm to create an optical illusion,” she stated. “If a person saw the dress in a shadow, there’s more blue light in a shadow. They immediately think, ‘Oh, there’s blue light there. I’m gonna filter out that blue light, and I’m actually gonna see the dress much more white and gold.”
A decade on, Holderness said she’s glad the dress debate continues to live on. “Things go viral all the time for really negative reasons,” she said. “To have something as low stakes and fun as the dress being part of internet history, I think is wonderful.”
Back in 2015, former Today host Hoda Kotb joined in on the dress fun, writing via X, “Pls tell me you see black and blue when u look at this dress?” At the time, Kelly Clarkson replied to the tweet by stating she saw “yellow and gold,” adding, “I don’t get it haha.”
