Pantone Colour of the Year revealed: How to style ‘Cloud Dancer’

Pantone has announced its Colour of the Year for 2026 as ‘Cloud Dancer’ – a shade the Colour Institute calls a “perfect blank slate” for fashion, interiors and design.

“As we walk into 2026, it became clear this is an evolution – a transitional time. People are questioning everything: what we believe, how we want to live, where we want to live, ” says the vice president of the Pantone Colour Institute, Laurie Pressman.

And perhaps predictably: “We’ve been overcommitted and overstimulated. People are craving respite – less noise, less fuss, more simplicity.”

This craving for lightness is what has informed recent Colours of the Year. “Every colour has a name – and that name matters. Change the name, and you change the emotional reaction,” Pressman explains.

2024’s Colour of the Year, ‘Peach Fuzz’ “had a whitened, lightened feel because people wanted lightness of being”.

While last year’s colour, ‘Mocha Mousse’, “wasn’t a dense brown; it was a whipped brown – airy, soft, lighter – because we just don’t want to carry heaviness with us.”

Beginning in 1999, Pantone’s Colour of the Year was created to engage the world in a shared dialogue about colour.

“The goal was really to start a colour conversation,” says Pressman, “to highlight the relationship between colour and culture, because the colours we engage with reflect what’s taking place in the world at a moment in time”.

Introducing ‘Cloud Dancer’

This year continues that trajectory. As executive director of the Pantone Colour Institute, Leatrice Eiseman, says, “Introducing Pantone 11-4201, Cloud Dancer.”

It’s a neutral white, which Eiseman says is “imbued with serenity – a calming influence in a frenetic society”.

“We’re looking forward to a future free from toxicity and excess,” she says.

“Cloud Dancer evolves our desire for contentment and harmony – a feeling of peace, unity and cohesiveness.

“It’s a colour that lets us rise above the clouds, free ourselves from the cacophony and embrace a fresh start.”

So, how do you wear Cloud Dancer?

It’s not necessarily difficult to style this colour, as we undoubtedly all have a neutral white piece in our wardrobes, but the institute says silhouette and fabric finish are integral to pulling it off in 2026.

“Fashion infused with Cloud Dancer carries a billowy softness – weightless, light and serene,” says Eiseman.

She talks about the rise of elevated minimalism on the red carpets – just take the recent monochromatic looks on the carpet of the Fashion Awards: with Sienna Miller, Sharon Stone, Alexa Chung and Kylie Minogue all sporting the hue.

Here, fabric finishes like mesh, silks and satins is what made the outfits work.

“Fabrics with a soft sheen create shifting shadows – the light and dark you can only get with white,” Eiseman says, which is key to styling this colour in the new year.

“Weightlessness is the point,” she says, “rounded shapes, cocooning layers, warm and cosy yet still light.”

This makes sense, just looking at the bubble hem and balloon pant trends of the year, capacious and fluid silhouettes are only becoming more popular.

Designers will lean toward shape over pattern, the institute says.

“Voluminous silhouettes work beautifully because the simplicity of the palette allows the line to be exaggerated,” says Eiseman.

“We’re seeing diaphanous, floaty, fluid fabrics – from organza and lightweight silks on the body to billowy, cloud-like drapery.”

How will it manifest in 2026 trends?

You may argue that this year’s colour is arguably more of a shade than a colour, so what else was in the running?

“This whole idea of rest and relaxation,” says Pressman, “there is a piece to that of sure that could play with the blues, but it was about simplicity and making our lives more simple, decluttering, getting rid of all those distractions.”

The idea of simplifying and reverting back to comfortable staples is what led to the choice of Cloud Dancer.

“[It’s] a little nostalgic,” says Eiseman. “We might even wind up seeing it in go-go boots again. I wouldn’t doubt that would be a trend in shoes.”

Other nostalgic trends Pantone’s experts predict will come back are Nineties icy eyeshadow and Sixties white liner.

“We’re comforted by that colour,” says Eiseman, “even in the beauty field, you know, this pathway to the white eye make-up. I mean that we haven’t seen anything like that since eyeliner back in the Sixties.”

It seems this colour will manifest itself more in the familiar than the avant-garde, predicting trends of the swinging Sixties may be making a comeback for 2026.

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