Pantone Selects Mocha Mousse as the Colour of 2025

News Pantone Declares Peach Fuzz Colour of the Year 2024 Sam Gaskin

Pantone, a company that provides colour insights to design industries, has selected Mocha Mousse 17-1230—a rich brown reminiscent of neutral palettes that took hold of mainstream fashion in recent years and widely adopted by influencers like Kim Kardashian—as the colour of the year.

Each year, Pantone selects one colour that is said to capture the global zeitgeist. At once humble and luxurious, Mocha Mousse speaks to a desire for ‘connection, comfort, and harmony’, the firm said, noting its ties to small pleasures like the essence of cacao, chocolate, and coffee.

Amid fears of recession, the colour consultants identified a desire for simple treats. Mocha Mousse reflects ‘a level of thoughtful indulgence’, said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director Pantone Color Institute, referring perhaps to the colour as a derivative from a more common, darker brown—an unassuming shade in its unmanipulated state.

Within art, brown is the colour that often goes unnoticed—from the earthiness of the soil in a landscape painting to shading techniques favoured by Dutch old masters and the natural appearance of undyed garments worn by the working class during Britain’s industrial age.

Last year, Pantone chose Peach Fuzz—a light, orange-pink said to capture a desire to nurture ourselves and others—as its colour of the year. The flesh-toned shade replaced a more bombastic magenta from 2023 and a deep violet from a pandemic-recovering world in 2022. —[O]

Main image: PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse Plastic Chip 3. Courtesy Pantone.