Pantone's 2026 Color of the Year

Define "color"

Every year, Pantone announces its Color of the Year. This big reveal is accompanied by artsy graphics and many florid paragraphs of explanation. It’s a heady moment if you are a designer, marketer, blogger, or brand manager but otherwise it is missing from most people’s radar.

This year was different. The 2026 color, called “Cloud Dancer,” got a lot of attention and a lot of flack.

Cloud Dancer is the dove-white color, not the pretty blue sky. (Photo: Pantone)

Here is an excerpt of Pantone’s description of what this white is supposed to do and look like.

A Whisper of Tranquility and Peace in a Noisy World

Cloud Dancer lifts us to lofty heights where this diaphanous white breaks through gray skies revealing clear, breezy blues under a misted sunlight. Aqueous blue-greens emanate from the watery depths.

Wow. Lofty! Diaphanous! Aqueous! Why didn’t I look for a copywriting job at Pantone when I had the chance?

It’s hard to see all those pretty adjectives in that little 11-4201 square of white. Interior designers commented that choosing a plain white color was somewhat “Pantone-deaf” and not very helpful. As one editor at Dwell put it when she and her colleagues were reading through mountains of pitches from brands and designers, “Some are offering tips on how to incorporate white into our home—about as useful as a tutorial on drinking water.”

Some mocked it as the equivalent of a "Landlord Special,” where everything in a house, down to the doorknobs, is coated in indifferent white. Don’t we have enough white swatches in the paint aisle to keep us happy until 2085?

But this isn’t just any white. This is Cloud Dancer! It whispers, it has tranquility—it…it…it has WATERY DEPTHS.

The Deeper Meaning of Choosing White

Pantone asserts that Cloud Dancer is both an active conveyor of tranquility, and a passive blank canvas that will complement all the rest of the colors with which it is paired. Critics pointed out that these are two very different things. Do you accept it gratefully as a brilliant new shade of Play-doh? Or do you rejoice that finally there is a truly neutral white destined to be the perfect choice no matter where you put it?

(Photo: The Toy Insider)

Others had some interesting things to say about how the color selection reflects what’s happening to us culturally. (This is the first year, incidentally, that Pantone selected white for its Color of the Year.) Perhaps it is an indicator of the collective mood of wanting a little peace and quiet, some serenity that doesn’t rage or talk back. Last year’s color was a metallic brown called Mocha Mousse and boy, did it have attitude.

Or maybe it’s just bad timing, choosing white instead of color. While I understand how that particular criticism could emerge right now, with overt and covert racism spilling out from the very top of our government, I don’t think Pantone should be blamed. I mean, for all we know the forecasters sit together in a big room blindfolded and throw darts at a big round color spectrum. This year, the decisive dart landed outside the target, literally on white space.

And despite the discomfort, Pantone is getting a lot of attention (and some pretty nice licensing deals) from all the noise about its controversial white.

RH’s famous Cloud sofa in white. Kind of a serendipitous cloud connection. (Photo: AptDeco)

Colors are powerful symbols and signals—red, white, blue, black, yellow, green, purple, brown. They are as much political as decorative. They are imbued with meanings that vary according to culture. They are warm and cool. They are in vogue, and then out again. Each of us responds uniquely to color and our opinions are strong.

That’s why if you are in the business of marketing color, know that it’s a tough audience and you’ll need to gird your loins.

Maybe just not in white cloth.