Grade B7 sourcesHIS-01060
The Dress
Meme & format · 2015 · Niche
A colour debate spread from Tumblr and helped Roman Originals sell 3,000 dresses.
Spread Score
How it worksNumbers
- Dresses sold
- 3K
- Initial 1½ weeks · Cofounder retrospective · Self-reported · The Independent
- Seed to peak
- 1 day
- Feb 26 ’15 to Feb 27 ’15
- Platforms
- 6
- Started on Open web
- Origin
- Organic
- Culture (no sector)
Mechanics
How it spread
Trace the originA Tumblr photograph divided viewers over the colours of a dress. BuzzFeed polling and Twitter debate brought it into news coverage, television and a charity advertisement.
6 more events on this chart
Join free to see themTimeline (9)
February 2015
swiked seed · Feb 26 ’15
Caitlin McNeill posted the dress photograph on Tumblr.[1]
BuzzFeed platform jump · Feb 26 ’15
BuzzFeed published a poll asking readers to identify the dress colours.[2]
WIRED press · Feb 26 ’15
WIRED asked vision researchers to explain disagreement about the photograph.[3]
Changelogupdated Oct 16 ’26
- Added: 8 events, 6 sources · Score 37
Spread the same way
New cases, every week
How the next thing spread, the week it does.