Pantone has crowned a soft, airy white called Cloud Dancer as its 2026 color of the year — the first time in the program’s 27-year history that the global color authority has picked a shade of white.
Officially known as Pantone 11-4201, Cloud Dancer is described by Pantone and design editors as a “billowy white imbued with serenity.”
What is Pantone?
According to its website, Pantone helps designers and producers ensure color control so that brand identity can stay consistent regardless of what and where something is made.
How do they choose the color of the year?
Lori Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, told designers during a webinar Tuesday morning that the new pick comes out of months of global trend research, not a whim.
“The color we select to be our Pantone Color of the Year is not an arbitrary decision,” she said, calling it “a culmination of the macro-level color trend forecasting and research our global team … conducts year-round.”
It also follows a run of emotionally loaded hues: 2024’s Peach Fuzz, chosen for warmth and compassion, and 2025’s Mocha Mousse, selected for comfort and harmony. This time, Pantone is offering something closer to a reset button.
A ‘whisper of calm in a noisy world’
Pantone created its Color of the Year program in 1999 to highlight how “what is taking place in our global culture is expressed and then reflected through the language of color,” Pressman said. For 2026, that language is intentionally quiet.
“We are challenging existing norms and questioning long-held beliefs in our continuing search for truth, possibility and a new way of living,” she said, describing a world that feels overcommitted and overstimulated by 24/7 hustle culture and rapid advances in artificial intelligence. In that context, the team went looking for a hue that feels like a deep breath.
Cloud Dancer, Pressman said, is “a natural white shade that symbolizes our desire for a fresh start. Like a blank slate, Cloud Dancer signifies the beginning of something new.” Later, she called it “a whisper of calm in a noisy world.”
Pressman tied Cloud Dancer directly to the way people are recentering life around home and relationships, especially family. She said that alongside the push for individual self-expression, many are “seeking the enriching emotional sustenance we derive from the warmth and comfort of spending time with friends and family, savoring each moment and indulging in simple pleasures to elevate the everyday.”
Forbes called the color both a “palate cleanser and a palette cleanser,” clearing away bolder shades in favor of a simplified aesthetic.
Pressman framed the white as a bridge between tech and humanity — “a more human quality” that “shifts the emotional tone of technology from cold efficiency to gentle clarity.”
From Post-it notes to spa days
Like past colors of the year, Cloud Dancer will show up everywhere from runways to living rooms. But Pantone is also rolling out a series of very tangible collaborations built around the soft white.
In interiors, Cloud Dancer is featured in a furniture collection with Joybird. On desks and in classrooms, the color will join Post-it’s new “neutrality collection” of earthy tones in spring 2026. In kids’ rooms, Pantone is partnering with Play-Doh, positioning Cloud Dancer as a blank slate that “encourag(es) play” and “the embrace of exploration of possibilities.”
Home-fragrance company Pura has created a scent meant to “embody the spirit” of the color and “quiet the mind.” At Mandarin Oriental hotels, Pantone says guests can expect Cloud Dancer-themed experiences, from oxygenating spa treatments to afternoon teas.
Even tech gets the treatment: Motorola’s new Edge 70 smartphone will arrive in Cloud Dancer, with a quilted vegan leather back and Swarovski crystals designed to “bring a feeling of peace to our pockets, our palms, and our digital lives,” according to Pressman’s presentation.
Whether it ends up on sneakers, towels or the next favorite phone case, Pantone is betting that the most influential color of 2026 might be the one that leaves the most room for everything else — a soft white that feels less like an answer and more like a question: What could happen on a clean, calm slate?
