When the color experts at Pantone announced Cloud Dancer as their 2026 Color of the Year, they predicted the shade would inspire a kind of cool calm.
But the choice of Cloud Dancer, which Pantone described as a “billowy” white, has instead sparked heated controversy.
People online have blasted the shade for being “bleak” and “boring” and possibly not a color at all. After hearing the description of the color read during TODAY’s Dec. 4 unveiling, Al Roker retorted “otherwise known as white.”
Others have denounced Cloud Dancer as tone deaf and “white washing,” expressing other controversial takes.
Read on to learn all about the controversy over Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year.
What Is the Pantone Color of the Year?
The Pantone Color Institute has been choosing an annual color of the year since late 1999 when it deemed Cerulean Blue 2000’s Color of the Year, WWD reported. It called the soft blue shade the “Color of the Millennium” and said it inspired hope.
The institute’s color experts “comb the world looking for new color influences” to choose its star shade each year, according to Pantone’s website.
Each year’s color is influenced by everything from movies and fashion to art and travel destinations, and more. Colors are also inspired by lifestyle trends, new technologies, sports and socio-economic conditions.
Additionally, a Pantone spokesperson tells TODAY.com, “The Pantone Color of the Year selection process is driven by the color/colors that are bubbling up across design and tying this to the zeitgeist. The emotional resonance inherent in the color is key to the selection process.”
Other companies like Benjamin Moore and WGSN also choose an annual color of the year. The paint company chose Silhouette AF-655, a “luxurious burnt umber with delicate notes of charcoal” as its 2026 color. WGSN opted for Transformative Teal, the color “for a period of change and redirection.”
What Is Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year?
When Pantone announced Cloud Dancer as its 2026 pick, it described the color as “a billowy, balanced white” that’s “imbued with a feeling of serenity.”
Like a blank slate, the “ethereal” Cloud Dancer is a symbol of a “calming influence in a frenetic society” and signifies our desire to make a fresh start, the company stated.
The color also hints at “our search for balance between our digital future and our primal need for human connection,” said Laurie Pressman, the Pantone Color Institute’s vice president.
Why Is the Choice Controversial?
Though Pantone described Cloud Dancer as a serene color, it inspired a red-hot response after it was chosen as 2026’s Color of the Year.
While some people — including wedding planners on TikTok — celebrated the choice, many others found Cloud Dancer oddly bleak, or worse.
“Your choice is about as inspired as mayonnaise,” one person wrote next to Pantone’s announcement about Cloud Dancer on Instagram.
“Pantonedeaf,” another added, while one person commented, “It seems as if this selection, and the content created around it, was conceived in a vacuum completely removed from our collective social and political present. I’d hope a brand that has this much cultural impact wouldn’t operate with such a glaring blind spot.”
“It’s giving unseasoned chicken,” jabbed another.
When a Washington Post reporter asked for feedback about Cloud Dancer in a TikTok video, users didn’t hold back.
One person called the color “bleak” and “dystopian,” writing, “The color of the year is no color. Just another example of the life being sucked out of us all.”
Another said its “lack of color” was a “recession indicator,” joking, “Pantone can’t afford color this year and neither can anyone else.”
With headlines all year reporting on the rise of white nationalism in the United States, many critics saw the choice of Cloud Dancer as either “tone deaf” or biased.
“SO… you all sat down and had some meetings. Rolled around some ideas. And in all those meetings, not a single one of you… in this moment where white supremacy is in the news everyday…. thought, ‘maybe now isn’t the right time for this,’” one person wrote on Pantone’s Instagram.
“Was ‘klanrobe white’ taken?” added someone else.
How Has Pantone Responded to the Controversy?
Pressman addressed speculation that proclaiming white the color of the year could raise some eyebrows in an interview with Washington Post.
“Skin tones did not factor into this at all,” Pressman said, noting Pantone has been asked similar questions in the past about other color picks. “With Peach Fuzz and then with Mocha Mousse, people were weighing in and asking if this was about skin tones. And I think we were going, ‘Wow, really?’ Because for us it’s really about, at such a basic level, what are people looking for that color can hope to answer?”
During a Dec. 4 launch event, Pantone’s president, Sky Kelley, said she knew Cloud Dancer would be a “pretty controversial” choice.
Pantone’s pick, she said in a speech caught on video by CNET, “sparks a conversation about color that everyone can participate in.”
She added, “At Pantone, we don’t dictate that conversation, we facilitate it.”
In a statement to TODAY.com, a Pantone spokesperson also explained the meaning behind the color’s name.
“Cloud Dancer visually represents a space to create, like a blank page ready for you to turn your inspiration into reality,” the spokesperson said, in part. “It gives us the ability to become receptive both to what can be and what’s ahead as Cloud Dancer suggests the inner peace we feel after clearing the noise around us.”
Explaining that the name plays a major role to “conjure up a feeling,” the spokesperson said that Cloud Dancer “reflects a universally shared experience: wherever we are in the world, we all look up to the buoyant clouds for inspiration, wonder, and to spark imagination.”
Adding, “In the simple act of looking up, we’re connected by the drifting lightness of clouds. That universality is a huge part of why Cloud Dancer was selected as the Pantone Color of the Year 2026.”
