Pantone just released their Color of the Year, which is always the last one of the bunch to be published. Let’s review some of the major brands’ COTY selections for 2025.
Pantone - Mocha Mousse
While I love a good chocolate brown, and I was encouraged with the color name and the photo of a decadent mocha mousse in their graphics, this was a disappointment for me. It doesn’t look rich, it just looks like a dark SW Kilim Beige to me, which I do not like.
It has too much orange in it for a true brown tone and I feel like it was chosen for the beauty industry more than anything.
It reminds me of Sherwin Williams’ Color of the Year in 2023, Redend Point. I didn’t love that one either.
Here’s an example of a similar color on a wall in a showroom at High Point Market.
Benjamin Moore - Cinnamon Slate
I like this better than Pantone’s COTY, but it is just a little too bland for me. I wish there was more eggplant in it, to me it leans that direction, just not enough.
This color came out before High Point Market and I was on the look out for similar shades when touring the showrooms.
Here were a couple of good examples, on the walls in these vignettes. These might be a little warmer than Cinnamon Slate, but these are close.
Sherwin Williams - Color Capsule
Sherwin Williams didn’t pick one color this year, they selected a capsule of colors.
As I was writing this post, I was trying to remember what their color was, as I usually can recall them all pretty easily. Honestly, I couldn’t remember anything about what they chose. I guess playing it safe and going with a smattering of various colors doesn’t make you very memorable, so maybe that marketing trick backfired. :-)
I do like most of these, except perhaps Bosc Pear, but not in the same room, obviously!
Glidden - Purple Basil
Maybe you would think I would be on board with this color, after my eggplant comment on the BM Cinnamon Slate color, but no, this just reads like Barney the Dinosaur to me. If you look on their website, they have a photo of a kitchen in this color, and you will see what I mean.
Purple tile seen at KBIS. A very vivid color choice.
Behr - Rumors
Ding, ding, ding, ding…..we have a winner here! I love this COTY from Behr.
It is rich, bold, and after all the cool colors that have been popular, then now all the warm rusts, terracottas and olive greens, this feels different. It still offers that moody vibe, but is less muddy.
While I’m not much of a bright red fan in interiors, this color has a lot of brown in it and reminds me of an upscale holiday color or, of course, a nice red wine.
It reminds me of this chair I saw at market that I was immediately drawn to because of the color.
This vignette at the Kravet showroom had a similar color scheme.
