A new year brings with it new trends — and colors are no exception.
Since its establishment in 2000 to usher in the new millennium, Pantone’s Color of the Year has become a touchstone for fashion, arts and interior design, with many designers creating pieces that either directly use the color or complementary to the company’s color of the year.
For 2025, Pantone has chosen Mocha Mousse as the color of the year for its comforting appeal with undertones of rich opulence.
“Underpinned by our desire for everyday pleasures, Pantone 17-1230 Mocha Mousse expresses a level of thoughtful indulgence. Sophisticated and lush, yet at the same time an unpretentious classic, the color extends our perceptions of the browns from being humble and grounded to embrace aspirational and luxe. Infused with subtle elegance and earthy refinement, Mocha Mousse presents a discrete and tasteful touch of glamour,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said.
“The everlasting search for harmony filters through into every aspect of our lives including our relationships, the work we do, our social connections and the natural environment that surrounds us. Harmony brings feelings of contentment, inspiring a positive state of inner peace, calm, and balance as well as being tuned in with the world around us. Harmony embraces a culture of connection and unity as well as the synthesis of our mental, spiritual and physical well-being,” related Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute.
“With that in mind, for Pantone Color of the Year 2025 we look to a color that reaches into our desire for comfort and wellness, and the indulgence of simple pleasures that we can gift and share with others,” Pressman noted.
To select the color, a global team looked at new technologies, social values, art collections and travel destinations, assessing the overall mood or feelings designers and consumers were feeling throughout the year.
“There are reasons why people gravitate to certain color families when they do. For us, it really is zeroing in on a color family that we see bubbling up across all areas of design, and then from there, drilling it down into the color that we see,” Pressman shared.
The new color captures the current zeitgeist. With people eschewing loud colors in favor of understated timeless elegance, the new color serves as an anchor, providing a sense of stability and being grounded.
The color evokes a feeling of the comfort in homes whether appearing on flooring or a painted wall, within home décor or in more natural materials, including wood and stone, rattan and wicker, leather and linen.
In apparel and clothing, its lightweight appearance lends itself well to diaphanous and floaty chiffons, silky textures, satins and jersey fabrics that add fluidity and draped elegance.
