The Pantone Color of the Year 2025 is Mocha Mousse, a very understated choice

Color us shocked. The Pantone shade of the year has been announced and it’s…brown?

That’s right: the neon green of Brat Summer and the watermelon-chic aesthetic of “Wicked” are So 2024, with the paint company announcing Thursday morning that the shade for 2025 will be a more subdued mocha mousse.

PANTONE 17-1230 (the official name of Mocha Mousse) is a calm, slightly pigmented color. It’s “a soft brown with a sensual and comforting warmth,” Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, tells USA TODAY.

The color is meant to appeal to multiple senses and make you want to dip your spoon into it, says Pressman. Inspired in part by “Little Treat Culture” – a growing trend in which people punctuate their day with small treats like a store-bought coffee – Pressman encourages his fans to “find the mocha moment.”

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“The culture of little treats really helps increase our sense of personal comfort and well-being,” she says. It is intentional that the color reflects a cup of coffee with a dash of cream too much or a delicate milk chocolate. The name should also pamper your taste buds.

Why mocha mousse?

Aside from the more obvious chocolate connection, Pressman and Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, tell USA TODAY that the hue creates a feeling of harmony and warmth.

In 2023 and 2024, Pantone selected the shades of magenta and peach, respectively, reflecting a desire to be celebratory after extended COVID lockdowns. Now that the pandemic is firmly embedded in collective memory, the world is ready to embrace a gentler, quieter joy, say Pressman and Eiseman.

“The overarching theme in finding this year’s color was this whole idea of harmony,” says Pressman. As the world becomes more complex, consumers are seeking inner peace and balance, she says. A “versatile” light brown that can reflect both luxury and a nod to nature is the perfect shade to communicate this desire.

“There’s so much going on outside of us that we’re looking for things that are softer and lighter,” says Pressman. As for those “dopamine glows” (read: Barbie pink and brat green), there’s a place for those too, but mocha mousse reflects a mood much bigger than any fleeting zeitgeist trend, she says.

How does Pantone decide the color of the year?

The Color of the Year has been around since 1999, and contrary to what some might believe, it’s not just a handful of people at Pantone looking at swatches and placing their bets. The Color of the Year was selected by an international team and based on extensive consumer data from the fashion, design, hospitality and automotive industries.

It’s actually “a very distanced exercise,” says Pressman. However, our reaction to it does not have to be this way.

Part of the joy of the annual unveiling, Eiseman says, is that it “sparks a need to talk about color.” By sparking this conversation, another, more subtle one emerges alongside it – a dialogue about how we think our years have gone and what mood we want this chapter to represent, both on a collective and individual level.

“Our reaction to color is very personal, isn’t it?” says Eiseman. “It brings back childhood memories – our first tricycle (or) the time you got sick from eating too much cotton candy.”

Whether the entire world nods its head or instead tilts its head in confusion, this morning’s revelation will have sparked a debate with cultural implications that go beyond “mocha mousse.”

Bringing color to life

For the first time, Pantone will bring its color choices to real-world installations. Mocha mousse is coming to life in major cities like New York, Shanghai and Mumbai. The first installation of its kind will take place on the London Eye. The tourist attraction in the heart of the city will illuminate the skyline in the shade of mocha mousse.

Pantone also works with commercial partners for tactile applications of the Color of the Year. Post-it, for example, will offer sticky notes in a range of hues inspired by Mocha Mouse, and online retailer Society 6 will offer art inspired by the color palette.

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