Pantone colour of the year 2025 ‘Mocha Mousse’ Pantone selects a colour each year that “Captures the global zeitgeist—the Color of the Year express a global mood and an attitude, reflecting collective desire in the form of a single, distinct hue”. ( see the Pantone website here ). Mocha Mouse is, a warm brown, and Pantone suggest, as we approach 2025, we have a collective desire for comfort.
For todays Colour in the studio, I’m going to share how I’ll be bringing Mocha Mousse into my beading palette. Colour trending and forecasting is very useful, but… I know I have colour dedicated customers, bonded forever to blue, or purple, or those who will never use gold, or maybe silver as a metallic colour. There are also customers who passionately dislike a colour and will swap it out if it appears in a kit. Similarly there are those who will pass by a design, however gorgeous, if it doesn’t have enough crystals and crystal stones front and foremost. Colour forecasting can sometimes be a big miss in the bead world too, remember the ‘Illuminating Yellow’ and ‘Ultimate Grey’ of 2021? the design below is a necklace version of the 'Goes with Anything'Bangle the PDF is here. For me, a colour forecast is a great opportunity to take a fresh look at my offerings, and add in something new.
I’m fairly certain that all shades Mocha Mousse will be popular in the fashion and accessory industry, so I’m thinking about what beadwork and crystal colours will look cool next to a Mocha blouse, t-shirt or jacket.
How I do it? First I look at all the trend information I can find, google ‘Mocha Mousse jewellery’ and there is already plenty to discover. Lots of Rose gold and coppery toned metal with smoked Topaz crystal, warm mink and coffee pearls and accents of cream and peach.
Next, I look at the colour information that Pantone put out for suggested palettes around the Mocha Mousse. I like their slightly vintage mix of the’ Floral Pathways,’ which you can also explore via the link given above. It suits my studio style, and the Willow Green, Powder Blue and Fresh Violet get me on a thinking journey away from the more obvious darker and lighter shades of Mocha into unusual juxtapositions of colours I already resonate with.
Once the colour story is clearly in mind, I take a look at the beads already in the studio, and pick out ones that could sit well with the story.
I already love and use the warm beige of Miyuki 4455 and 4694 often as a neutral. However, my go to metallic palette tends to be on the cool side, with Light and Dark Bronze, Pewter and Gunmetal, so as possible alternatives I’m looking at 4208, 419, 461 and 4213.
We are so lucky to have lots of bead textures to play with. Metallics, opaques, frosted and semi frosted. We have lustre and rainbow, chalk and iris finishes to the beads too.Looking again at the images of the Mocha Mousse trends, super shiny and softly matted surfaces sit along side rich metallics.I’ll be warming up my metals palette and adding some quirky floral mixes to new designs in the New Year.These two pieces are older designs, but show the Mocha mix in action:
Mechanicae a simple lariat the PDF is here.
Hepsibelle, a more elaborate design with a Tiger eye cabochon. The PDF is here
Colour forecasting is a huge industry and known to designers and manufacturers working sometimes two and three years in advance of products hitting the high street. It used to be a hidden world and I love that Pantone has opened the doors for us all to get engaged and involved. Pantone started the Colour of the Year programme in 1999 to encourage discussion about colour. How colours are arrived at is a fascinating process. Read the story behind Colour of the Year here.