The dress saga continues ;DISCUSSING #THEDRESS WITH THE 1ST WOMAN WHO WORE IT: MODEL LAURA COLEM

THE DRESS; COLEMAN IN THE DRESS.

TheDress. At this point, it's a meme and hashtag that
needs no explanation (though here's a brief one: A
woman in Scotland uploaded to Tumblr a photo of a
dress , the colors of which, her and her friend disagreed
on. So did the rest of the Internet, etc).
Over the last few days, it's gotten to a point where you
can't turn on your computer, look at your phone,
watch TV, or leave your house without hearing
someone talking about The Dress. (True story: I
actually started a conversation with a stranger on the
subway about it yesterday. Yes, I wish I were joking.)

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Despite many people (including yours truly) feeling
that The Dress is white and gold, several have since
concluded—correctly—that it is, in fact, blue and black.
One such black-and-bluer is Laura Coleman , who's had
somewhat of a close relationship with the now fabled
piece of womenswear. Why? She's the model
seen wearing it on Roman Originals' website—where
The Dress formerly known as "Royal-Blue Lace Detail
Bodycon Dress" was originally sold for £50.

As you'd imagine, I had a bunch of hard-hitting
questions for Ms. Coleman, a 28-year-old former Miss
England.
While we Americans became familiar with the plight of
The Dress sometime on Thursday evening, Coleman,
who lives in London and has been working with
Birmingham-based store Roman Originals since 2009,
wasn't made aware of the fast-moving meme until the
following morning.
"Friday morning I woke up and was casually scrolling
on Facebook when I noticed that someone had posted a
bad quality photo of some dress," she recalls. "I just
assumed it was one of my Facebook friend's personal
photos that they'd put up, and I didn't think anymore
of it."
Coleman went about her day as if it were any other—
until suddenly, it wasn't.
"About an hour later, my friend messaged me with the
photo of me and said, 'Is this you modeling #thedress?'
I asked him what was going on. He explained that this
dress looked different colors to different people, and
that it had gone viral throughout the world. I was
really shocked."


Much like a lottery winner, Coleman says that,
throughout the day, she found herself inundated with
messages from people she hadn't heard from in years:
"I've had so many messages about it... [and] I think my
Instagram and Twitter followers have gone up the last
24 hours."
But despite the attention it's suddenly brought her, it's
unlikely the model will be donning The Dress again
anytime soon. "It's a cute occasion dress, but not really
my personal taste or style," she explains. "As a model,
I'm always wearing and trying out different styles at
work, which I love to do. [But] my own style is more
relaxed." Hey, The Dress isn't for everyone.
Oh, and for the record—when Coleman first saw the
grainy viral photo, she thought The Dress was white
and gold. "But I had just woken up... The second time
I looked, it was blue and black!"
Any questions?