• by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, December 10, 2024

Get ready, design trend world!

At its recent Color of the Year 2025 launch event, the Pantone Color Institute announced (drum roll) it had chosen Mocha Mousse, an “evocative soft brown” as the coming year’s official hue.

Mocha Mousse is a high-toned name that seems to put on airs, but Pantone's Color of the Year is meant to “capture the zeitgeist,” said Pantone Vice President Laurie Pressman in a release.

"It's us taking the temperature: What's taking place in the world around us and how does that get expressed into the language of color?"

To make the pick, which Pantone has been doing for 26 years, its experts at the Color Institute sift through the worlds of fashion, interior and graphic design, pop culture and psychology.

The original Color of the Year was Sky Blue for 1999, a basic that generally makes humans happy. 

Whereas the choice for 2023 was Viva Magenta — “an unconventional shade for an unconventional time.”

Last year’s pick, Peach Fuzz, was described as “a light, fruity tone that conjures peace and serenity.”

“Fruity serenity” seems to be a pendulum swing away from Mocha Mousse, an anxious pick for a complicated year.

But the Color Institute maintains  MM speaks to “our desire for comfort” and that it represents a “growing movement to align ourselves more closely with the natural world.”

OK so it’s literally down-to-earth.

Pantone illustrated its choice with an attractive photo of a gleaming glass dessert dish filled with a shimmery brown substance architected in upward swirls.

After all, a “mousse” is airy. And mocha is coffee- or cocoa-colored, some form of noncommittal brown.

As such, the substance in the picture reminded me of delicious chocolate soft serve.

But it didn’t take long for my mind to jump from the frozen treat to a certain impolite emoji showing a warm brown pile-up with eyes.

But whoever writes this poetic stuff about color for Pantone has very gracefully eschewed the poo.

In quotes attributed to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, the brown mound of 2025 is explained as “a mellow brown infused with a sensorial and comforting warmth.”  There goes the frozen soft serve side of it, I guess. 

But perhaps Pantone sees this color as a high-low thing, its own paradox.

“Sophisticated and lush, yet at the same time an unpretentious classic, Mocha Mousse extends our perceptions of the browns from being humble and grounded to embrace aspirational and luxe,”  says Eiseman.

So is it a raw, earthy extrusion, er, extension, or a hue with unequaled elegance, further described in the release as having a “discrete and tasteful touch of glamour”?

Perhaps these up and down descriptors can be explained by the much-admired words of  poet Walt Whitman in “Song of Myself, from his 1855 genius collection, "Leaves of Grass":

“Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

So what sort of multitudes should we attribute to this contemporary brown?

A trip back to the election of 2000 conjures up candidate Al Gore’s unfortunate embrace of  “earth tones" in his wardrobe. Those were made up of “reassuring” browns and greens, chosen for him by a feminist consultant (Naomi Wolf) to project more “alpha male” and “good father.”

When the word got out, the poor guy was almost laughed off the hustings. (And lost.)

But certainly, brown has done the job for UPS.

It conveys a workman-like discipline, and plainly wrapped packages.As the delivery giant’s historical lore goes, UPS founder Charlie Soderstrom found yellow too conspicuous and black too hard to keep clean.

So, he took his inspiration from the Pullman sleeping cars on trains, to represent “class, sophistication, and professionalism.”

And wouldn’t it be nice if, this year, the choice was also a nod to changing and increasingly blending demographics: In the next 20 years, the U.S. will become minority white.

I don’t think this choice includes that big of a picture.

Other companies also have come out with their own 2025 color announcements. Benjamin Moore has chosen “Cinnamon Slate.” And the paint company Dunn Edwards has bet on “Caramelized.”  Both appear to be on the same color spectrum as mocha, if not mousse.

Whereas, my pick would have been the aggressive, unexpected color that bubbled up authentically on social media: “Brat” green.

But maybe Brat is so last year.

Whether chicken or egg, these predictions have an effect. We will be seeing brown in our futures, from living room walls to soft leather skirts.

I hope, as Pantone suggests, the choice reflects our desire for comfort, “rootedness” and “alignment with the natural world” in 2025.

I’m sure we’d all prefer that to a shit show.