Pantone’s Colour of the Year is an eagerly-awaited announcement every winter, and 2026’s choice might just be its most controversial yet. After 2016’s Rose Quartz (aka Millennial Pink) and 2025’s Mocha Mousse, the Pantone Color Institute has named Cloud Dancer its pick for 2026, calling it “a lofty white that serves as a symbol of calming influence.” Speaking to PS UK in New York, Laurie Pressman, Vice President at Pantone Color Institute, explains that “this is a natural white with equal cool and warm undertones. There’s a human quality to it.”
The shade proved immediately divisive. It’s no surprise that many were skeptical over the message that naming a shade of white the colour of the next twelve months could send. During a turbulent political climate, with a global rise in far-right politics and Eurocentric beauty ideals, a rollback of inclusion programmes, immigration policies and trans rights, it’s a bold decision.
Comments on social media ranged from “The color of the year being colorless is a recession indicator” to “This says a lot about the state of the world, how boring”. Is it a dull choice that signifies a lacklustre year ahead or does it suggest the desperate need for readjustement?
Pressman is clear that “this colour is not a prediction. It’s a reflection of what people are aspiring towards,” rather than a message or a statement. Cloud Dancer represents a reset after the chaos of the past few years. According to Pressman, Cloud Dancer is the culmination of a trend towards lightness. “Peach Fuzz [2024] was a whitened peach, Mocha Mousse [2025] was a whitened brown. . . Everything is heavy around us, so there’s a pull towards lightness, serenity and calm,” she adds. As Pantone put it on Instagram: “Cloud Dancer. . . is a whisper of calm and peace in a noisy world.”
“It’s a blank canvas, a fresh page. How do we make this a more human, kinder and balanced world?”
Noisy is one way to put it. The political temperature is a key consideration in Pantone’s decision making process, which starts around March each year. A colour can be decided as early as June, or as late as November. But while Pressman says her team, which ranges from 10 to 20 people in any given year, is always nervous to make the year’s announcement, they weren’t any more nervous this year. “There are conversations around politics and how this will be interpreted, but we have to stay true to what we’re seeing,” she adds.
After the turmoil of the 2020s, a break sounds like a dream scenario. But for people whose rights and safety are under direct and increasing attack, a break is exactly that – a dream. How do Pantone square that reality with next year’s shade? “No one is ignoring what’s going on,” Pressman says. “We’re acknowledging that we’ve got to this place and maybe this isn’t working the way we would have liked. Maybe we need to take a step back and try a different path forward. This is about opening up your mind so that you can think about writing the future differently. It’s a blank canvas, a fresh page. How do we make this a more human, kinder and balanced world?”
Pressman’s global team, which includes people with backgrounds in colour, design and psychology, takes everything from design exhibitions to the year’s TV highlights into account when deciding on the Colour of the Year. “This isn’t a one day conversation in a boardroom, it’s ongoing. [The team] are constantly filing things away in their minds: art, fashion, interiors, plays, books, articles, travel destinations, sporting events . . . It’s constant. They pick up on the mood and decipher why it’s happening in the way that it is.”
Then come the partnerships. This is Pantone’s fifth year collaborating with Motorola on a device in the shade of the year – this time, a Swarovski-encrusted motorola edge 70 in a pillowy-textured Cloud Dancer finish. In New York, Ruben Castano, Vice President of Design, Brand and CX at Motorola, spoke about how customers are looking for the softness and tactility Cloud Dancer brings to tech, seeing this as more than just a new colourway tie-in.
“We’ll be seeing more white in beauty, fashion, technology and home. But it’s also a mood of things being simplified and stripped-back.
Other brands tapping into 2026’s “serene” hue include Play-Doh, Post-it, Mandarin Oriental hotels and Tony’s Chocolonely, plus perfume, homeware and tea brands. Pressman is clear, however, that brand deals will never influence the final choice. In 2013, Pantone was working on a collaboration with Sephora. The colour of the year? Emerald. “We got pushback because their number one category was lips, and they thought [green lips] wasn’t going to sell. But this isn’t about marketing. We have to stay true to what we’re seeing.”
So, are we all going to be billowing around in white linen in 2026? Not quite. “Yes, we’ll be seeing more white in beauty, fashion, technology and home. But it’s also a mood of things being simplified and stripped-back,” Pressman shares. She also credits white’s versatility, calling back to people’s desire for more sustainable, streamlined wardrobes. However, it’s also a mark of status. It ties into notions of purity, clean girl aesthetics and quiet luxury – what might look effortless requires a lot of upkeep in the background, something not all of us have the time to maintain. We’ve already seen celebs including Lily Allen, Olivia Attwood and Sienna Miller wear the hue this winter, so it’s likely to make its way all over the high street.
I’d love a moment to pause. Like many young women of colour, I’m burnt out by hustle culture, struggling to make ends meet and terrified about the world I’m living in. Cloud Dancer encapsulates a world I’d love to live in, and I can see why people aspire to it. But I, like many others, have to keep my feet on the ground in the face of the world’s pressing injustices.
Isabella Silvers is a multi-award-winning freelance journalist and has written for titles including PS UK, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Evening Standard, Esquire and more. She also writes Mixed Messages, a weekly newsletter on mixed identity. She was named on PPA’s and Media Week’s “30 Under 30” lists, won a WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award, and was shortlisted at the Investing in Ethnicity Awards and the European Diversity Awards.
