THE internet was on fire last week with a controversial debate about a dress.

In terms of social media attention-grabbing it surpassed Kim Kardashian’s bare bum. Taylor Swift and Cheryl Cole put in their two penn’orth. Time Magazine and The Washington Post discussed the phenomenon. It even made international TV news.

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For those who didn’t see it – and you’d have had to have been on a Tibetan monastery retreat to miss it – the furore centred around its colour. Was it blue and black or white and gold. The nation was divided.

Now whether it was coloured camera filters, Photoshop, a trick of the light or something scientific – one scientist was talking about light refraction, eyes and angles – it remained a mystery. One expert said it had something to do with mood, which probably explains why I wear a lot of black.

Whatever caused the illusion, by the time the dress had been tracked down to assess its true colour, it had sold out. It was £50, the sort of dress your mum would wear to a wedding, if she was brave enough to do bodycon. What’s more, it was a dreadful, unforgiving royal blue and black, the type dullard prospective Tory candidates might wear in the run-up to an election.

The designer was Roman Originals. Now, I don’t mean to be a fashion snob, but in my humble opinion RO is a bit of a naff brand that tends to have a presence in outlet malls. It’s the sort of shop you reluctantly enter, when all other fashion retail options have been exhausted, knowing that you’ll only be adding to your disappointment.

It’s also the type of dress that occupies rail upon rail in seasonal sales because you have to be downwards of a size 12 to avoid unsightly bulges and no-one likes the colour. It’s too harsh for fair skins and too cold for dark – besides royal blue is such a boy colour.

So, without the hype and global attention, RO could possibly have been left with a lot of unsaleable stock on its hands, which means somebody, somewhere has been very clever indeed. It’s one thing engaging the public, but getting a mention on C4 news is a PR’s dream. So well done that clever marketeer.

The remaining problem for me is that I thought the dress was lilac and brown satin which means I probably need a trip to Specsavers.