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Black And Blue? Gold And White? 'The Dress' Riddle Explained

(CBS) – The biggest question around the world today: Is it gold and white, or blue and black?

Not everyone agrees when they see what has become known around the Internet as "The Dress."

A bride's mother bought the dress and sent a picture of it to her daughter and her fiance. When the two disagreed on what color the dress was, they posted it online. Now, everyone is weighing in.

CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot has the science behind this optical illusion.

Chicago opthamologist, Dr. Colman Kraff says he sees gold and white. Randomly selected people may see different colors, such as blue and black or maybe even some green in there.

Dr. Kraff says there's an explanation.

"This is how the brain interprets this image and different colors of light will be refracted, or different wavelengths of light, are refracted, each a little bit differently in the eye," he says.

He adds: "When it hits the retina, each brain interprets it differently."

London-based designer Michelle Bastock says she never made the dress in gold and white.

"Wow! It's a great surprise for us because we produce a royal blue dress and suddenly, when you look at it on the screen it, sometimes it shows ivory and gold or royal blue and black. It's an enigma," she says.

Nothing special was done to the fabric either, she says. The dress costs about $75, and sales reportedly are up 300 percent.

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