Pantone’s Color of the Year 2025 will comfort you – or make you hungry

The Pantone Color Institute has announced its 2025 Color of the Year: Mocha Mousse (17-1230), a “warming, rich brown tone” that Pantone says suggests the “delicious quality of cocoa, chocolate and coffee.”

“There is a growing movement to align ourselves more closely with the natural world,” the Paramus, New Jersey-based Color Authority said in a statement. “Distinguished by its organic nature, Mocha Mousse honors and embraces the livelihood of our physical environment (and finds harmony and balance between the demands of modernity and the timeless beauty of artful creation.”

JCK Editor Amy Elliott isn’t sure there’s an “immediate jewelry connection beyond brown diamonds.” She says: “For jewelers I see the opportunity that this color would be absolutely great as a new option for presentation and packaging. It feels rich, velvety and warm.”

Jennifer Heebner, editor-in-chief of the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) publication. Prism, says she “loves” the choice.

“Mocha Mousse is reminiscent of brown zircons, natural-colored Tahitian pearls, champagne and cognac diamonds, and smoky quartz—all warm, rich hues that reflect the decadent tones of chocolate,” says Heebner.

Katey Walker, owner of Katey Walker Fine Jewelry in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, calls the color “an elevated take on a modern neutral. I can see it crossing over with topaz jewelry, hessonite garnet and even matrix opal.”

Mocha Mousse is noticeably darker than previous products, such as this year’s “gentle” Peach Fuzz or 2023’s “vibrant” Viva Magenta.

In one New York Times Round table, Style reporter Vanessa Friedman noted, “This is the first time in the 25-year history of Pantone’s Color of the Year that they’ve chosen a shade of brown, which is a big deal.”

Elliott believes the selection could signal “a general move away from stones in neon candy colors toward ones that are grayer and a little muddier.” So instead of fuchsia pink, you get a pink that’s more reminiscent of rosewood.

“It’s very classic, very quiet luxury,” Elliott says of Mocha Mousse. “And I see a hint of a dusty pink undertone – in fact, I think we’ve seen this exact shade before in blush and eyeshadow.”

Just Reporter Stella Bugbee said on the panel that the color “feels like a departure from ‘Brat’ green, which was a viral moment that no company could have predicted. “In that way, it feels different.”

But Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, told NPR that choosing the color of the year “takes our temperature: what’s happening in the world around us and how is that expressed in the language of color?” And as When we did our research for this year, we mostly saw people who are looking for harmony and living a life in harmony.”

Friedman doesn’t necessarily think the color represents the current zeitgeist.

“This year seemed to be about disharmony – a state of affairs that shows no signs of ending,” she said Just. “But then (Pantone) also said the goal was ambitious. And this mousse was a kind of sharing food.”

Additional reporting by Amy Elliott

(Image courtesy of Pantone Color Institute)

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