Colour of The Year For 2025: Mocha Mousse
On Thursday 5 December, PANTONE® announced their Colour of the Year for 2025: Mocha Mousse, which it describes as ‘a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort.’
PANTONE® Mocha Mousse
Image via Pinterest
Following the trend it set for itself in 2024 with Peach Fuzz, PANTONE® is again looking towards notions of comfort and warmth to inform its decision for 2025. It has again selected a soft, neutral tone. However, Mocha Mousse feels more about personal comfort and even privilege, compared to the gregarious warmth of Peach Fuzz. This sentiment is in keeping with the ‘quiet luxury’ trend that has been sweeping social media over the past several months, or as PANTONE® phrases it: ‘thoughtful indulgence’, with the intention of reframing the perception of brown tones as humble and earthy, to something more luxe.
Naming the Colour of the Year after coffee and chocolate, two products historically associated with luxury, is certainly very evocative as well as being steeped in a complex narrative of what luxury has meant and means today.
Historically, coffee and chocolate have been viewed, particularly in Western cultures, as luxuries because of their ‘exotic’ nature and the labour that goes into cultivating, refining and distributing these products. This labour is often problematic and these products have historically reached our shores by means of the labour of enslaved and colonised people. Their rarity and status symbol for the wealthy made these products very luxurious, in a way that was deeply problematic.
Today, although the processing and distribution of coffee and chocolate is not without its issues, these products are now widely available and have become a part of every day life. Although still considered luxuries, the way that we frame this concept is different under 21st-century life. Concepts like ‘hygge’ and cosy coffee breaks have turned coffee and chocolate from an upper class luxury into something softer, more gentle and to be enjoyed convivially or quietly on one’s own. Yes it’s about the luxury of Mocha Mousse, but it’s also about the luxury of having time to enjoy these ‘every day pleasures’.
So, where have we seen Mocha Mousse already, and what has the response been so far?
There’s also been a trend towards brown-toned make-up which again leans into the quiet luxury aesthetic and coffee imagery - ‘latte makeup’ as its called, is a viral TikTok trend intended to make the wearer look refreshed and with a creamy complexion - just like a latte. Wearers are encouraged to use complimentary brown-toned makeup products to create a bronzed glow, which has been packaged into a convenient and easy-to-consume social media micro aesthetic.
Despite its early adopters, Mocha Mousse has also been met with some criticism in the past week since its launch. Interior design authority Michelle Ogundehin writes that Mocha Mousse is the encapsulation of ‘enshittification’ - a term recently coined by author Cory Matthew defined as ‘the gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of that service [...] as a consequence of profit-seeking’. She suggests that this perhaps unappealing shade of brown does more to suggest our global society’s current and ongoing myriad failings that PANTONE® might like or have intended. Ogundehin also points out the cynicism of PANTONE®’s Colour of the Year, noting the brands scrambling to sell unnecessary products, simply because they’re in a colour that has been elected as favourable.
PANTONE® launches several official products and collaborations made in its Colour of the Year, and Mocha Mousse is no different. For 2025’s shade, PANTONE® has partnered with brands such as Motorola (again, proving Ogundehin’s point that a phone doesn’t need to be replaced every year just because it’s brown now, not peach), Joybird, Society6 and even Post-it®, to produce Mocha Mousse homewares, gadgets and stationery amongst several other brand partners and products. There is even a Mocha Mousse MINI Cooper new for 2025
Whether you view PANTONE®’s Colour of the Year trend forecasting as an important exercise in colour theory and a reflection of where we’re at as a society, or a cynical exercise in consumerism (and a reflection of where we’re at as a society), the end of year buzz and dialogue that this annual ritual creates in undeniable.
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