Collage by Vogue
Collage by Vogue
Since 1999, Pantone has been selecting a color that will characterize the culture of the year ahead. “We wanted to highlight to our audience how what is taking place in our global culture is expressed and reflected through the language of color,” Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute, has said of the company’s wildly successful yearly project.
“We talk about, is it an evolution or a seismic shift?” Pressman adds on a call to discuss 2026’s selection with Vogue. “We realized that we’re living in a transitional time. We’re looking for truth. We’re looking for possibility. We’re looking for a new way of living because of everything that’s going on—it just feels like, ‘well, wait a minute, how did we get here? How do we reset?’ We’ve been overcommitted, we’re overstimulated. And we want relief.”
The relief will come in the form of a shade they’ve dubbed Cloud Dancer, “a lofty white that reads like a breath of fresh air and is imbued with a feeling of serenity,” as Lee Eisman, Pantone’s executive director, describes it. “It’s about expressing our aspiration for a future free from toxicity and excess. Cloud Dancer evolves our desire for contentment and harmony and the feeling of peace, unity, and cohesiveness.” Pressman adds, “It’s not a stark white, it’s specifically a natural shade of white.”
It’s an unexpected choice. Given the current political and cultural climate, declaring a shade of white the color of the year is a bold statement. At the same time, observing the world around us—which is first and foremost what the Institute does—it’s almost as if there were no other possible options. Indeed, we are all searching for purity; we just have such different ideas of how to go about it.
Aesthetically speaking, white it is a color that does not disturb, does not rock the boat, a color easily found in everything around us: in cars, in architecture, in furniture and interiors, even in food, and certainly in fashion where it is a “classic,” that “never goes out of style,” and a “wardrobe essential.” White simultaneously hints at futuristic sensibilities—minimal, stark, clean—and at traditional ones—“It’s a nice day for a white wedding,” as the song goes. White can be everything to everyone, or anything to anyone.
“When we went down this path, we felt very strongly about encouraging creativity, encouraging you to use your imagination and bring this [color] in a way that suits who you are and how you want others to see you and how you want to feel,” Pressman concluded. “It’s self-expression.” Below, the best examples of Cloud Dancer-white on the spring 2026 runways.
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
