I’ll be honest, last year I struggled when Pantone in 2024 announced their colour of the year was "Peach Fuzz". Memories of my sisters childhood bedroom with it’s peachy carpet and green and orange floral curtains is not a happy one (especially after she ironed her skirt straight on the carpet and left a nice iron shaped piece of melted carpet behind).
So imagine my horror when Pantone said, "I’ll take your 80's peach colour and raise it with 70's Mocha for 2025!" Really! Mocha?! I’ve only just got my head around greige!
I’m not ready to return to a time when I had no influence over my surroundings. When duvet ‘sets’ were chosen for me and my furniture was from MFI and let's face it - pretty basic.
Pantone however, do their own thing...they’ve done their research, run the stats, checked with the industry experts and it’s brown - it’s Pantone Mocha 17-1230.
Pantone say, “The Colour of the Year expresses a global mood and an attitude, reflecting collective desire in the form of a single, distinct hue.”
Wow! Capturing the zeitgeist there! Love it! But not brown!!
“PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, 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.”
Chocolate and coffee? Yes please! Comfort? of course!
But how do you include this tone of brown into your home without the Duran Duran flashback and scraping 2 layers of skin off on the Artex?
The key is to give the brown some balance. Match it with a complementary colour from the other side of the colour wheel. In this case I've chosen a steely blue.
You can always ground it with a softer shade of mocha too or a cotton shade in a wallpaper. Maybe just pop a few mocha homeware items in your room and add the colour that way. A cushion, throw or piece of art can bring a shade to life.
However you decide to try the Pantone colour of 2025 - Enjoy it! It's chocolate and coffee after all xx