Cloud Dancer Is The Colour Of The Year 2026

As has become a yearly convention, Pantone has closed the year by naming its Colour of the Year, a decision that increasingly reads as cultural temperature check rather than trend forecast. For 2026, that choice is Cloud Dancer, a muted, aerated white will dominate some of the best looks in the following year.

According to Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, the selection emerged from a broader reassessment of how colour functions in daily life. Cloud Dancer, she shares "is a discrete white hue offering a promise of clarity. The cacophony that surrounds us has become overwhelming, making it harder to hear the voices of our inner selves. A conscious statement of simplification, Cloud Dancer enhances our focus, providing release from the distraction of external influences."

While the Laurie Pressman, Vice President, Pantone Color Institute has stated: Similar to a blank canvas, Cloud Dancer signifies our desire for a fresh start. Peeling away layers of outmoded thinking, we open the door to new approaches. An airy white hue, PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer opens up space for creativity, allowing our imagination to drift so that new insights and bold ideas can emerge and take shape.

In 2025, we saw glimpses of the colour making the round on international red carpets. Take The Met Gala for instance, that saw the F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Punjabi pop-singer Diljit Dosanjh grace The Met Gala red carpet in shades of ivory that are close to Pantone's Cloud Dancer.

Hamilton appeared in a custom cream-coloured suit by Grace Wales Bonner, a look rooted in rigorous tailoring and cultural narrative. Its muted tonality stood apart from the evening’s customary visual maximalism, aligning instead with a quieter, more deliberate approach to red-carpet dressing. The look relied on cut, proportion, and surface rather than colour saturation, allowing material and silhouette to carry the message.

While Diljit Dosanjh made a high-profile debut in a regal, predominantly ivory ensemble designed by Prabal Gurung. His outfit was complete with ivory turban, cape, and embroidered details which brought traditional Punjabi aesthetics into a red-carpet context, with custom jewellery elevating the soft neutral palette.

And of course, the outrightly fashionable American record producer Pharrell Williams made headlines for his finely stitched Louis Vuitton suit. At the Emmys, the Materialist actor Pedro Pascal donned a double-breasted suit jacket and pants by Celine. You get it.

Though the year predominantly saw Mocha Mousse, a warm, earthy, and comforting brown hue that evokes the richness of coffee and chocolate become a dominate colour in the fashion closet, much of the next year may see Cloud dancer and shades of white over turn the love for mocha.

With the colour of the year now established people can expect a refuge of visual cleanliness that inspires well-being and lightness and certainly demanding more creativity with the colour as simple as white and all that it can and does encompass. A key structural colour whose versatility provides scaffolding for the colour spectrum, Cloud dance is expected to allow all colours to shine. In a world where colour has become synonymous with personal expression, this is a shade that can adapt, harmonise, and create contrast, bringing a feeling of airy lightness to all product applications and environments, whether making a standalone statement or combined with other hues.

So if were planning to never invest an all white outfit, this might be your chance to give it a shot. As it leaves plenty of room to mix ad match. Afterall, Pantone’s colour forecasting has always bordered on a kind of cultural manifestation — an attempt to articulate what we hope the coming year might hold.