Can Coloro Really Replace Pantone For Predicting The Color Of The Year?

The announcement of the Color of the Year by Pantone is often eagerly anticipated. This excitement is immediately followed by a storm of responses, mostly on social media. Lately, there are other trend predictors chiming in with their own suggestions. One such tastemaker is Coloro, which developed the Coloro System, a digital color matching program. Its 2025 choice of "Future Dusk" is very different from Pantone's 2025 Color of the Year choice, "Mocha Mousse." And Coloro has already announced its color pick for 2026: "Transformative Teal." Is it possible Coloro could replace Pantone as the color trend authority? In a word, no.

In a podcast discussion on "The Art of the Brand," the hosts say that Pantone is "no longer in touch" with trends. They question why Pantone should be the dominant opinion, as opposed to influencers on TikTok and Instagram. They further refer to "old school, bureaucratic mentalities" and how they're "ignoring the real data sets that matter, but still trying to cling to their authority."

And yet, in 2023, Pantone's Color of the Year, Viva Magenta, was reflected in the widely-felt influence of the hugely popular  "Barbie" movie. This suggests Pantone is aware of the wide spectrum of influences that go into making color. For a relatively new company like Coloro to become a color czar, there needs to be an acknowledgement that fashion and design are connected to social movements and innovations much older than the digital age. Coloro is, comparatively, a new kid on the block. Pantone's history and reputation in this realm goes back nearly four decades, while Coloro is a relatively new company founded in 2017.

There are similarities and differences in how Pantone and Coloro approach the world of color. Pantone started as a printing company in the 1960s. It developed a proprietary color reproduction system, the PMS (Pantone Matching System). Its printed Pantone Guides, handy fan-shaped color swatch decks, helped streamline color matching for professionals in fashion, graphic design, and textile manufacturing. The Pantone Color Institute was established in 1986, and started naming a Color of the Year in 1999.

In addition to its digital color system, Coloro also makes physical products: its "Color Libraries" contain color-coded folders and polyester swatches, priced between $1,195 and $7,995. Comparatively, Pantone's products have a much wider range of price points, speaking to their popularity and accessibility. The two companies' color systems appear to be visually comparable, but one notable difference is that Pantone has a legacy of expertise that is widely recognized. Even in the social media realm, where Coloro is trying to emerge as a color trend contender, it's clear which company has the advantage: Pantone's Instagram page has 3.9 million followers, while Coloro's page has 104,000 followers. 

Negative public reactions to Mocha Mousse seem to follow the same script: it's a somewhat drab color at a time when more vibrant hues are pervasive. Yet even the gardening world has embraced Pantone's 2025's Color of the Year. Coloro's prediction of teal as the "it color" in 2026 isn't particularly revelatory, since teal has been a trendy alternative to boring green for a while now. Pantone seems, for the moment anyway, undefeated as the arbiter of color trends.