Pantone, Or Your Tone?

Every year, someone calls me to tell me about the Pantone Color of the Year.

Here is what I really think.

Choosing color is not hard because color is hard. Color is hard to choose because you are trying to paint a feeling that lives in your mind, heart, and soul. A feeling of belonging.

The more you know what those feelings look like, the more agency you will have over the color choices you make, and the reasons why.

When Devine Color got into Target, the first thing they gave me was a Pantone selection of colorways to use because everything in the store was to be coordinated. Your baggage at home isn’t.

Below is a decade of Pantone trends and their reason for being.

Everyone needs a reason for being.

Are you thinking about these things when you buy the latest color?

Here are Pantone’s reasons.

2026 Cloud Dancer. Society needs calm, reflection, and a fresh start.	Except they  are already blinded by the white walls they have now.
2025 Mocha Mousse. We crave balance, groundedness, and mindful comfort.	Except comfort comes in so many other colors.
2024 Peach Fuzz. Conflict and stress demand compassion, belonging, and tenderness.	Except conflict requires care, not comfort.
2023 Viva Magenta. An unconventional time calls for bravery, exuberance, and joy.	Except that loud is not the same as joy.
2022 Very Peri. Our digital and physical merge needs creativity and reinvention.	Except creativity is not about what’s new but what is personal.
2021 Ultimate Gray and Illuminating. Pandemic trauma requires resilience plus optimism.	Except sunlight is not bright on cloudy days.
2020 Classic Blue. Uncertainty and mistrust call for stability, faith, and calm.	Except calm is not the same as trust.
2019 Living Coral. We need optimism, play, and a bridge between digital and natural worlds.	Except orange has nothing to do with real or fake.
2018 Ultra Violet. Overstimulation demands spirituality, vision, and cosmic imagination.	Except spectacle is not the same as meaningful.
2017 Greenery. Political tension and burnout need renewal and reconnection with nature.	But nature is not political.
2016 Rose Quartz and Serenity. Culture is moving toward gender fluidity, equality, and emotional balance.	But equality is a rainbow, not pink and blue.

Trends come and go, but true love lasts forever.

You are the color expert of your life. The only one who knows, because your body speaks fluent color and learned from a mother nature that shows you how color should be lived as joy, not as a collective uniform of social currents and political trends others are deciding for you.

There is the unconditional color baggage that lives inside of you. Your unique blend of color experiences creates color relationships you are attracted to and crave for a reason. These are color relationships you will need later in life and express in joyful ways. They will enrich your well-being and amplify your life every day to make life’s constant change sweeter.

Then there is the conditional color baggage, the kind that has my clients coming and going at the mercy of trends. Living with cherry wood cabinets that aged a lousy shade of Ron Burgundy, and rooms neutrally decorated to look timeless but turn out to be intolerant of any other color. These homes never feel satisfied or complete because they constantly have to start over again as trends come and go.

When you paint every bit of your home with natural color relationships that reflect your color baggage, homes feel harmoniously dynamic and exciting instead of decorated or trendy. No matter how old or new anything is, it all looks meaningful and beautiful.

Here is what Pantone taught me about knowing. In a word we can't fully control, and a life full of surprises, we are the only animals in this planet that can choose the experiences that belong to us and create art, music, poetry, gardens, architecture, sculptures, and environments.

Pantone, or your tone? Coloring is an act of belonging.

You are the palette.

 Send this to someone you know. 

Gretchen.