What Does Mocha Mousse, Pantone`s Color of the Year for 2025, say about us?
We have been seeing the color brown around for a while now, slowly taking over black. It’s intriguing to see how people are beginning to view brown as just as neutral as black. However, many are still unsure about how to pair it with other colors. I’ll dive deeper into this specific topic in a future post. Today, I want to focus on how fascinating it is that Pantone captured this trend and encapsulated it in a very specific brown hue: The Mocha Mousse.
Truth be told, I’ve been noticing a much richer and darker brown making waves since the beginning of 2024, but at its core, it’s still brown. So, what does brown represent across all its tones and shades? Comfort. Brown is deeply connected to nature, earth, raw materials, seeds, and, of course, the things that come from them—food. Food in all its forms, but especially the most comforting ones: chocolate and our beloved coffee.
Pantone’s choice of this color, The Mocha Mousse, reflects our collective yearning for comfort. Chocolate—whether it’s Swiss, a Snickers bar, truffled, molten, in a cake, or given as a gesture of love or apology—never fails to be a constant symbol of care and indulgence. And then there’s coffee—as a break, a date, a casual chat, a reunion, or a companion to a good book—it’s universally present. So why not combine the two for the ultimate comfort? Enter Mocha Mousse.
But the question remains: Why do we need comfort at this moment? This is where color becomes more than just a hue—it encapsulates the broader movements and emotions we navigate as a society.
After enduring a pandemic and finally reaching the point of widespread vaccination, we sought celebration, joy, and renewal—reflected in the vibrant colors of recent years symbolizing optimism. Yet, even now, we can’t escape the lingering sense of loss. It feels as though we’re collectively grieving the time and opportunities stolen from us during those years—a grief that remains unresolved on both personal and societal levels.
Adding to this, we face the resurgence of extreme right-wing ideologies, constant threats to democracies, the rapid rise of AI, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and most recently, the devastating conflict in Israel and Gaza. It’s an overwhelming time. Faced with so much, it’s easy to feel powerless, burdened by the weight of it all.
And so, we turn to the small, grounding comforts of life—a coffee with a friend, a slice of chocolate cake—because, despite everything, if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent times, it’s this: genuine human connection may not solve the world’s problems, but it brings the comfort and joy we need to keep going.
Welcome, The Mocha Mousse.
