Okay, can you just start by telling me a little bit about the dress? What does it look like?

I must confess that I am not very good at describing dresses.

So you don't, you don't have a minor in fashion?

No, no. If you had told me 10 years ago that one of your key research programs is going to be about the way people will perceive dresses, I would have said, "There's absolutely no way that--that will never happen." I don't care about dresses. I don't have a dress. I've never talked about dresses.

And now I talk about it a lot.

Oh, uncertainty! It can be so cunning!

You literally never know what's going to happen next...

Or how some stranger's fashion conundrum could change the trajectory of your career.

And this dress--my first impression was that it's really ordinary.

It's a pretty standard dress, don't you think?