this is half right. the part about the lighting is accurate. but the key point is the computer screen - the confusion is an artifact of the technology, not some pothead philosophy about perception. i can tilt it from blue to white by moving my laptop screen back and forth. if the dress was in front of me, there would be no such artifact and no resulting confusion.

you can also see it as light blue and brown if you get the right tilt.

...and the truth is you can get similar results from just about any picture. google "trippy pictures", pull out anything and move your screen back and forth. blues become greens. yellows become whites. etc.

the reason this photo came out a little weird would have to do with the way it was captured by the camera.

i've read a dozen "explanations" and none of them are built around the fact that an image projected from a screen is not a physical object, and doesn't have the same properties. they all get the right kind of idea, but miss the important point.

professional photographers put huge amounts of effort into lighting and calibration to prevent this kind of thing. that's who you want to ask for clarification here in writing a better article.