*Please note; what follows are the thoughts of a professional day dreamer and do not in any way constitute advice on how to navigate the future. Other opinions are available on line.
MOCHA MOUSSE
In case you haven’t heard; Pantone’s 2025 Colour of the Year is Mocha Mousse
Pantone markets itself as the global authority on colour so they dictate what’s hot and what’s not based on broad ranging influences that include fashion, film, car and product design, cosmetics, art trends, global events and politics.
The final colour is a distillation of all these influences and according to Pantone reflects the current global zeitgeist and “what’s needed in our world today”.
Five years ago, just before the pandemic struck, I wrote another Colour of the Year blog post about CLASSIC BLUE which was Pantone’s Colour of the Year for 2020, you can find it over here: Classic Blue: It’s Not Normal.
Pantone announced this colour would offer “reassurance in unstable times.”
We didn’t know then quite how unstable things were about to get but I wrote these words as 2020 dawned and the Doomsday Clock ticked at 2 minutes to midnight:
“So our colour of the year, the one that’s heralding in a whole new decade, is a twilight colour designed to evoke the sky at dusk and according to Pressman “anticipates what’s going to happen next’ and asks “What’s the future going to bring as we move into the evening hours?”
I have nothing against this inoffensive, strong and stable colour. It’s just that I can’t help feeling the tone should be a little darker and the time a little later. If Pantone’s Colour of the Year is to represent the current global psyche perhaps it should be less new normal and acknowledge that we’re living in The New Abnormal.”
I’d been inexplicably hording tins of food throughout 2019 which I explained away as having watched too many ‘end of the world’ movies. But I stopped telling my friends about this compulsion when I realised they thought I was having a break down.
Now, at the dawn of 2025, the clock’s moved forward to 90 seconds to midnight and Pantone have announced Mocha Mousse as the colour of the year. This ‘new’ colour, that’s been suddenly shoved under the spotlight, is designed to “nurture us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort”
I find the names corporations give to colours fascinating. Words matter. Words tell stories, conjure moods and paint pictures, and they can also manipulate and twist meanings
It doesn’t matter whether Pantone markets this colour using associations with chocolate, coffee and silky-smooth deserts consumed indulgently in the comfort of our beige living rooms. A different reading is a soggy digestive biscuit dipped lazily in a mug of lukewarm tea as the world outside burns.
Mocha Mousse is the signifier of self-indulgence and finding solace in consumption, and it’s more than just a colour to put on your interior design board.
Mocha Mousse is a collective mood and an energy that reflects our desperate desire for comfort and convenience as we bury our heads in the sand and retreat into the blandification of everything to avoid the chaos of everywhere.
As I sort through my collection of fire wood, emergency lanterns, butane gas and matches that I squirreled away this year I wonder what 2025 will bring.
EPOCHS
Imagining the future is a very modern concern. For those who lived in civilisations that were unchanged culturally and technologically for hundreds, or thousands of years it would be hard to imagine any future that was different to the present. But for modern scientists time is a series of epochs spanning millions of years through the past and stretching even further into alternative futures.
If you’re unfamiliar with current discourse around this subject I can break this down into easy to digest bite sized chunks.
- An epoch can be defined by the impact it leaves on the earths geology and an epoch can last for thousands, even millions of years.
- For the last 11 500 years, since the melting of the last ice age we’ve been in the Holocene Epoch and it’s been pretty stable as epochs go.
- Things are changing, and changing fast. The deposits of plastic in fossil records suggest that we’re entering a new geological epoch.
- Scientists are debating whether we’re currently living in the new Anthropocene Epoch. This requires actual proof that current human activity will leave a geological impact that will be evident in rock layers for thousands of years to come. (that mostly means evidence of plastic – and yes that does include acrylic: AKA plastic)
So whilst scientists debate whether human activity is altering the molecular structure of nature, colour consultants are providing guidance on how to survive 2025 equipped with a colour radar tuned in to the latest fashion trends.
With the help of Mocha Mousse we can ignore the uncomfortable facts of our unpredictable reality and retreat into the cosy aesthetic of a virtual security blanket.
Mocha Mousse represents a refusal to engage with or acknowledge the real world. It’s a blank canvas and a blank expression. It’s complacent, indecisive, joyless and neutral. It sits on the fence. It says nothing, it does nothing, except dull the senses and mirror a collective psyche that seeks refuge in the mundane and the banal.
And yet……..as anyone that’s done a course with me knows; I really value the neutrals.
NEUTRALITY
It’s these colours; the greys, beiges, khaki greens and browns that build bridges and help bring harmony to discord and chaos.
It’s not that I don’t like Mocha Mousse, I mean, really – what’s to dislike? It’s just that I want it as part of a varied and well-balanced diet.
So as the new year unfolds on a future that demands action, inspiration and engagement my diary pages stare blankly back at me and I’m determined to fill them with colour and joy.
This year I’ll be kinder, happier, healthier, more efficient, more adventurous and more organised.
I think I said that last year.
Now could someone pass the chocolate digestives please?
Well what do we make of this ? When looked at this colour on the Pantone site I was pretty non-plussed – it is as if the world is on fire and everyone not affected directly is to snuggle down with a book!
I’ve been on a diet since October and so keeping an eye out for healthy eating blogs – in one study Rainbow Polyphenols are recommended. I’m not really sure what that means technically
but it seems to be a paradigm shift from 5 a day veg to a Rainbow fruit and veg diet. That sounds like the sort of aesthetic nourishment I’m needing for 2025 !!!! Jayne thank you Sue xx
Yes! I gave up on five a day a long time ago; my aim now is to ‘eat a rainbow’ everyday!
Do skittles count???
yes!!
You’re a philosopher, Sue. I’m finding it very hard to remain upbeat, as the world order burns. I’m distracting myself from all the things I have no control over, like the extremely toxic politics in the USA. (I’d migrate to Canada, but they don’t want retired people there, only bright productive ones). Crochet helps to keep me sane, but its harder and harder not to despair. If I were to choose a color of the year, it might be mud, which the mocha tones are very close to. Just add some smoke and you’re there.
I know….I feel it too. I keep depression at bay by laser focusing on the things I do have control over and investing time in the things and people I love. Crochet features a lot. As does gardening, dog walking and long conversations with friends. (ps. I think “Nuclear Winter” is a great name for next years colour ) xxx
Hi Julie,
I understand what you mean and how about being weighed down. Maybe try join a group that is trying to make a difference in the area that worries you. Martha Beck formed a group with an app but it costs something. Try to work locally with what is directly in front of you and make an impact there. If everyone would do that, we would be in a much better place.
“Mocha mousse … what’s to dislike?” Nothing at all but a few bright raspberries on the side tends to make that mouse just a bit more delectable … am I right?
The color takes me back to my childhood and those saddle shoes mt friends and I inevitably had to wear to school EVERY year for at least a decade. Those shoes seemed down right indestructable. Kids today do not realize how lucky they are in the fashion department.
I love Mayan history, and was lucky enough to serve as a tour guide of the Mayan ruins for several years during my youth. When the Mayan calendar ran out in 2012 the world laughed at the fact they thought the world would end. This fact, however, is fake news. The Mayans believe that each time the calendar runs out the world goes through a major ecological change – such as dinosaur extinction, or the ice age, and those do align as does our current situation where spiders we have never seen are discovered, alien looking creatures never seen wash up on our shores, global warming due to over population and less rainfall … modern science of course argues the validity of this thought because it cannot be proven inconclusively, but what can? Mother nature cannot be seen but she is certainly a force to be reckoned with, she proves it to us every day with both her beauty and destruction.
Yes! You’re absolutely right on every count! We live in extraordinary times. And how wonderful to have worked at Mayan ruins- such a rich and fascinating history. I was lucky to visit some pyramids in Mexico years ago – it was a humbling experience. xx
For some reason I keep thinking about Kaffe Fassett who said in one of his books that he had to knit a jumper in neutrals once and by the end of it he felt ready to commit suicide.
This colour also reminds me of drought, dried out soil and dust blowing in the wind… I try to think about Ru Paul’s comment that it is the job of the artists to make the world around them beautiful because they can.
Absolutely! Let’s make things beautiful!
First, I must say, I love your content. From the crochet that brought me here to the wealth of knowledge to the humor in your writings.
Second, as a Interior Designer (removed) the idea of a monotone mousey (or moosie) room is in a whole, depressing. As a base, an accent, weel you articulated it better then I can. To bridge, connect or aid. Right?
I’m reminded of the SAC base my husband was station at in the 80s. The base commander’s wife was allowed to change ALL the signage to brown, sorry mocha mousse! The school zone signs, the yield signs and yes even the stop signs.
And then was appalled that no one was adhering to the rules. SMH
What is that is said, what looks good on paper, isn’t always good.
Thank you Holly! That’s hilarious – brown stop signs!! And yes, also pretty depressing. But I like the sound of moosie…. ❤️