The color of the year has been a tradition for paint companies since 1999; the first company to start this tradition being Pantone. Pantone is a color company known for its Pantone Matching System, or PMS, a system that provides a universal language for color across various industries including graphic design, manufacturing and fashion. This ensures color consistency from concept to the final product. The Pantone color system allows artists to stay away from generic colors like “dark green” and instead use specific shades like “#3b5f4d”.
Every year companies like Pantone release a color that is supposed to influence the mood for the trends, cultural mood and fashion/design choices for the new year. The Pantone color of the year is Cloud Dancer or #11-4201. Cloud Dancer is a slightly off-white color.
Cloud Dancer has caused controversy for being seen as bland, tone-deaf and insensitive due to current social issues like DEI rollbacks. Thomas McMillian, a professor in marketing and director for the Center of Retailing Innovation at Texas A&M University, said that this choice prefers to play it safe instead of choosing a bolder color.
“Cloud Dancer is widely viewed as underwhelming because white is already pervasive across retail,” McMillian said. “It dominates home interiors, apparel basics and packaging design, leaving little sense of discovery or novelty. When a trend authority selects a color that consumers already see everywhere, it can feel less like a forward-looking statement and more like confirmation of the status quo,” McMillian said when interviewed by Texas A&M University.
“When the entire industry converges on variations of beige and justifies it by saying we’re all too tired for anything bolder, it starts to feel like we’re designing for defeat. After covering all these stories and talking to everyone involved, I’m left wondering: When did we decide that the only appropriate response to difficulty was to retreat into neutrality?” Cancilla said in her article on ELLE Decor.
Another worry floating around for people is that Pantone choosing an off-white color, and other companies choosing more neutral colors, is an early sign for a recession. This is due to the fact that during periods of recession people drift towards more practical and timeless goods, this includes having more neutral colors in your clothing and design choices rather than bolder colors that tend to go out of style quickly.
“There are interesting trends to observe from past recessions: fashion got more boring, more minimal, and more basic, and the startups emerging from the ashes of the Great Recession adopted a similar aesthetic for branding and corporate identity. If you spend any amount of time on social media — especially content geared toward women — this spare, white nothingness will be familiar to you: the Clean Girls should feel right on trend,” Mia Sato wrote in her article on The Verge.
Neutral colors are less expensive to create and produce, while colors that require more pop and hue are more expensive and go in and out of style without a pattern. While this is only a theory, it’s something many internet users have noted while speaking about Pantone’s choice.
However, not all opinions on the color are bad. Hugh Metcalf defended the color in his article for Livingetc, an interior design company, interviewing multiple interior designers about their feelings on the color.
“We’ve been through a long period of people craving calm, simplicity, and a sense of reset, and white has naturally become a language for that,” color forecaster Anna Starmer of Luminary Colour. “It offers breathing space, particularly in a world that feels visually and emotionally saturated,” said to Metcalf.
“White is never a default for us; it’s a deliberate choice,” interior designer Lucy Barlow, founder of Barlow & Barlow states. “We tend to reach for it when a room needs breathing space, or when the architecture wants to speak quietly rather than compete with color. If a client is drawn to a layered, textural palette, white can become a brilliant backdrop that allows materials, joinery, and art to take the lead. Equally, in homes where there’s generous natural light, white can make everything feel calmer and more expansive without feeling cold or minimal.”
Students’ opinions on this color choice are split down the middle, some are all for the color of the year, others find it distasteful and bland.
“I do agree on Cloud Dancer being the color of the year, as it really does look nice for being a white color. It doesn’t feel icy or plain like most whites do; it has a soft design which is meant for subtle warmth and has a restorative atmosphere to it, which was the intention for the color itself,” Davin Miller (‘26) said.
“It just feels so bland. Plain. Just downright boring for such an eventful year. It feels weird for Pantone claiming that it serves as a symbol of calming influence in a society rediscovering the value of quiet reflection when the general population of the USA right now has been doing anything BUT quiet reflection. It’s just disappointing to see,” Zee Cain (‘26) said.
Tripodium staff members opinions:
