Everything was going pretty swimmingly today at ELLE HQ: rounds of tea were being offered, colleagues were asking each other what they were planning to do for lunch, and catching up on last night's Love Island gossip.
That was, until we found ourselves arguing over what colour we could see in a photograph of some sportswear posted to Facebook.
Following on in the vein of #TheDress debate from 2015 (in which the internet lost its technological mind at the fact some people saw a dress as being white and gold, and others saw it as being blue and black), there's now a new picture testing our eyesight (torment our poor souls) yet again.
And no, it's not fun. It's blummin' annoying.
Earlier this week, Facebook user Rachael Stewart posted a photograph to the social media platform of a pair of Nike shorts, top and sliders admitting: 'Dunno how others see anything other than pink and white?'
While some people are seeing pink and white, others are seeing it in blue and grey (myself included).
What do you see?
Well, if you are seeing different colours to your colleagues, fear not as it's probably all down to the same reason behind the debacle over #TheDress, which New York University neuro-scientist Dr Pascal Wallisch explained in his study on internal body clocks and its effect on the way we see colours differently.
He theorised that our own circadian rhythms - our internal body clocks - and therefore our exposure to sunlight could be the determining factor in why we're arguing over the colour of a dress/pair of sliders.
He found that earlier risers spend most of their day in sunlight so will see the dress as white and gold.
He wrote in his study: 'Shadows are blue, so we mentally subtract the blue light in order to view the image, which then appears in bright colours – gold and white.'
Meanwhile, 'night owls' who are used to artificial light may see black and blue.
'Artificial light tends to be yellowish, so if we see it brightened in this fashion, we factor out this colour, leaving us with a dress that we see as black and blue,' he added.
Prepare for some serious arguments over this picture with your colleagues and friends today.
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
