the big business of sad beige

i hate pantone's color of the year.

“Mocha Mousse” is Pantone’s 2025 Color of the Year.

whose idea was it to do the mousse turd in the short stem glass coupe?? it’s giving “we have rhode campaign at home”

I hate it.

Well. I don’t actually hate the color itself, which is really just SAD BEIGE beneath the mousse turd branding. It’s not my favorite, I wouldn’t wear it, it’s meh, it’s just…sad beige. Like those Werner Herzog baby toys that rich white milennial parents really like (bc bright colors are *garish*).

omg…

What I really hate is that it’s the Color of the Year, which is a highly calculated business decision above all else.

This decision influences consumer trends, which in turn can advance cultural and political agendas (i.e. tradwife aesthetics were not an innocuous joke etc etc). After digging into the campaign, I think Mocha Mousse is just really…regressive. It feels like they just took 2024’s “Peach Fuzz,” went one shade darker, then slapped on the mocha branding to make it seem luxe. It’s still sad beige.

For me, the color does not stand for anything comforting, aspirational, or hopeful. Rather, it represents the cowardice of neutrality in a cultural moment when we cannot afford such passivity.