The Pantone Color Institute has announced its choice for Color of the Year 2025: Mocha Mousse. Following on from this year’s semi-optimistic Peach Fuzz, Mocha Mousse is exactly what it says on the tin: a light, sweet, creamy brown with a warm undertone. This is the first time Pantone has chosen a shade of brown for the award, not counting the earthy reddish brown Marsala of 2015.
As often happens when it comes to personal taste, Pantone’s Color of the Year (and the occasional tandem pick) has been controversial since its inception in 2000, even leading to an online conspiracy theory about the selection process last year. Today alone, people have come out in droves to express their deep-seated hatred for or utter confusion about Mocha Mousse. several comments sections. USA today even insinuated that Brat green was rejected in favor of the more “subdued” milk chocolate note.
Pantone claims it selects the annual color based on world events, attitudes and trends. This year, the institute’s executive director, Leatrice Eiseman, explained in a press statement that Mocha Mousse “expresses a level of thoughtful indulgence,” calling the color “refined and opulent” as well as an “unpretentious classic.”
I don’t follow trends in luxury goods, fashion, cosmetics or home goods in any way, so I can’t really give an opinion on how Mocha Mousse will impact the consumer market in any way – and I don’t really care that much in the first place. However, I find it a little strange, if not cringeworthy, that so many people can’t fathom looking at a tan without comparing it to poop.
In my mind, Mocha Mousse creates the softness of a plush teddy bear. A silky, creamy Dunkin’ hot chocolate (born and raised Masshole here). A velvety suede on a favorite pair of boots. The frothy frosting that fuses layers of chocolate cake together. The mushy organic clay collected from riverbanks to siphon impurities from our skin into face masks. The highlights on the fluffy feathers of beloved Kiwi birds.
And to be honest, Mocha Mousse is a bit more personal for me, both in terms of color and name. Since I have the opportunity to pontificate on my own thinking, I will say that I wear foundations, eye shadows, concealers, lipsticks and even nail polishes in similar shades of ‘mocha’, ‘chocolate’, ‘cocoa’, ‘Cappuccino’ and other decadent drink or dessert titles, for more than ten years. These are the titles that cosmetic brands have assigned to my skin color and the shades closest to it.
I am well informed about the politics of objectification, fetishizationAnd consumption that surround these names, but if I am to be objectified, I would much rather be compared to a sugary treat than have my skin color called “shit brown”, “diarrheal brown” or “dirty” – all of which I have been dealing with my entire life had.
Dirt or feces can be brown, but not all shades of brown can be compared to dirt or feces. Urine is (hopefully) yellow, but do you point at a buttercup or taxi and wrinkle your nose? Blood and crusts are red… Pantone has even developed its own ‘Period Red’ (it’s just red) in recognition of the stigma surrounding menstruation. But do you look at red velvet cake or rose petals and shudder a little?
I understand it’s not that serious, but unfortunately I’ve always been attuned to the way people react to the color brown, waking up every day and looking in the mirror as a Perpetually Offended Brown Person™.
The only thing I find egregious about this year’s color campaign is the supporting AI-generated imagery for Mocha Mousse, which is inexplicably yet deeply sinister in a way that I can’t easily find words for. You could say I just don’t like those things… 🤷🏾♀️
