Putting An Inclusive Spin On The Pantone 2026 Color Of The Year, ‘Cloud Dancer’

Folks are upset about Pantone’s color Cloud Dancer, but we could look at the color in a different way. (Photo credit: Pantone)

The internet has been abuzz with the news that Pantone has chosen Cloud Dancer as its color of the year for 2026. While Pantone is used to social media reacting to its color choices each year, I’m sure the color agency isn’t used to controversy.

What is the controversy and what can we learn from it? How can we think about the color Cloud Dancer? Should we even like it? Let’s break it all down.

What is Cloud Dancer?

Pantone describes the color as “[a] lofty white whose aerated presence acts as a whisper of calm and peace in a noisy world.”

The agency had a lot to say about how Cloud Dancer, aka white, represents a new beginning, describing the color as “a billowy white imbued with a feeling of serenity.” The color was also described as an “ethereal white hue” that “serves as a symbol of calming influence in a frenetic society rediscovering the value of measured consideration and quiet reflection.”

Here’s more about the color from Pantone:

Similar to a blank canvas, Cloud Dancer signifies our desire for a fresh start. Peeling away layers of outmoded thinking, we open the door to new approaches. Cloud Dancer quiets the mind, encouraging true relaxation and focus that allows the mind to wander and creativity to breathe, making room for innovation.

Choosing rest and consciously stepping away from relentless demands and turning inward recognises that true strength lies not just in doing, but also in being. Expressing our aspiration for a future free from excess, Cloud Dancer evolves our desire for contentment and feelings of peace, unity, and cohesiveness.

“At this time of transformation, when we are reimagining our future and our place in the world, PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a discrete white hue offering a promise of clarity,” says Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute. “The cacophony that surrounds us has become overwhelming, making it harder to hear the voices of our inner selves. A conscious statement of simplification, Cloud Dancer enhances our focus, providing release from the distraction of external influences.”

“We are living in a transitional time where people are seeking truth, possibility, and a new way of living,” added Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute. “PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is an airy white hue that exemplifies our search for balance between our digital future and our primal need for human connection—a liminal space that is a launchpad for creative expression—as individuals and communities are experimenting beyond traditional boundaries, opening the door to increased imagination and innovation.”

Is Cloud Dancer a continued slide to white supremacist authoritarianism?

Should we be worried about Pantone choosing Cloud Dancer as its 2026 color of the year? If we look into the relationship between fascism, authoritarianism and capitalism, there are plenty of bread crumbs to follow.

White has been co-opted for authoritarian means since the olden times. The Smithsonian cites Nautilus, which describes how white became the new color of royalty and power among European elites as European explorers began to traverse Africa. Interestingly, the color black was seen as a symbol of power and royalty before this point.

According to the article, the new relationship Europe was gaining with white and black led to its overarching racial views of “white people” and “Black people.” White was also viewed as a color that drew out impurities when worn on the body. This belief in its health benefits evolved into a belief in a higher status because of how difficult white garments were to clean. The idea of white equaling status is prevalent in the phrase “white collar job.”

These early forms of weaponizing the color white tie into other forms of weaponized whiteness (color-wise and race-wise), with the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan, who believed they were God-appointed protectors of the white race. Columbia, the figure representing America in John Gast’s 1872 painting American Progress, is wearing white flowing robes, packaging America’s path of human and ecological destruction of the western part of the country as “Manifest Destiny.”

An uncomfortable use of clouds is used in Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, her film that served as Adolf Hitler’s visual manifesto of his vision for Germany. As the International Association for Semiotic Studies writes, the film opens with scenes from the sky, clouds surrounding the viewer.

“For one minute and nine seconds we admire the sky and we can define inside the clouds, right beside us, a plane… an aircraft with the insignia of power; the plane of the Chancellor Adolf Hitler,” according to the site. The film goes into more of Hitler’s Nazi agenda and aesthetics, including the use of the eagle, “symbol of strength and beauty, which circulates between heave, abode of the gods, and the Earth, where we live, sometime back there, in pre-history, conquered the position of divine spokesman.” Again, we’re tying the so-called “divine” will of the Nazis to the white, pure heavens through its eagle messenger.

The Guardian brings everything into the modern day by explaining how far-right dog-whistle slogans include the phrase “My favorite color is white.” Couple that with some of the more egregious pop culture moments we’ve witnessed this year, such as Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle “Great Jeans/Genes” campaign. Are her jeans great, or her white genes? She’s talking about the latter, mainly because in one of the ads, she literally describes how genes are passed down through generations.

Fascist aesthetics also use white as a foreboding presence. The “purity” the government seeks isn’t through spiritual attainment, but through force, coercion, and paranoia. Glossi Magazine writes how fascist architecture draws from neo-classical and ancient Roman architecture, “by stripping away the ostentatious and stressing simplicity and symmetry. Cold and forbidding in nature, these structures were built to symbolize an unwavering power over the regimes’ people.”

The examples of fascist and Nazi architecture in the article include the Italian Fascist Party’s headquarters, which features a domineering white stone face amid a black and white “SI” background. The Nazi sites of the 1936 Olympics are made of white stone. The Collector shows a picture of the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, which features architecture that draws on classicist themes, but is more regimented and soulless than its predecessors. It’s also stark white. And The Sunday Times shows even more Italian fascist architecture, again, made of white stone.

The color white becomes even more stark when paired with another fascist design staple: functional blandness. As stated above, fascism rejects ornamentation as a principle. But Rationalism, an architectural style that became popular in Italy during the 1930s, “relied solely on science and calculation while designing spaces, completely rejecting decoration,” according to The Collector. A building from this time, Casa del Fascio, is one of the shining examples of this style — uniform, personality-less, and, of course, stark white. As The Collector describes, the building “perfectly resonated with the regime’s values of order, control, and rationality.”

Fascist aesthetics have been filtering into various aspects of our lives today. Of course, there’s the “great jeans” ad, but there’s also the fact that as capitalism veers closer to fascism, once-vibrant buildings, logos, and brand colors are now becoming lighter and lighter. So, since the country has quit soft-launching fascism and is openly celebrating it, the anger and, on some level, fear people have toward Pantone, the purveyor of human consumption from fashion to home goods and beyond, choosing white as its color of the year is reasonable.

An alternate, global perspective on the color white

We could indeed see this decision to make white the color of the year as an extension of American companies and leaders capitulating to white supremacy and fascism. In fact, there’s a lot of truth in this reading of Pantone choosing “Cloud Dancer.” But there are other ways to look at white and reclaim it from fascist, racist hands.

Let’s remember that the global majority is brown. This means that the worldwide majority has a different relationship to the color white than the Western world. Even in far-flung parts of the co-opted “Western world,” people view the color white differently, as Greek mythology uses white as a symbol of “healing, protection, and fertility,” according to artist Adrian Reynolds. The color was used similarly in Norse mythology, representing “prosperity, luck, and victory.”

Overall, the color white has been used throughout history and throughout cultures as a symbol of cleanliness, purity, spiritual alignment, and spiritual release. Reynolds has a quick overview of the color white in different cultures, starting with Indian religions. Hinduism, he wrote, uses white “to represent divine truth and peace.” The god Shiva, the god of destruction and creation, is represented in white. To me, this shows how essential and spiritual destruction, including our physical destruction through death, is as a part of life. Meanwhile, Buddhism uses white as “a representation of enlightenment and the attainment of Nirvana.”

Reynolds writes that white was known in ancient Egypt as “hedj,” a symbol of “purity, truth, rebirth” and the color of the gods. The color was used in funeral rites and represented the divine. That divinity extended to the pharaohs, who were believed to be appointed by the gods.

The Chinese also see white as a symbol of purity and protection, as well as innocence, a clear mind and spirit, success, and good fortune. But it’s also a sign of death and mourning. Design agency No Limit also describes wearing white at funerals as “a symbol of respect for the deceased” and helping keep evil spirits at bay so the deceased can find peace. My personal interpretation of that is because spiritually, there’s not a big difference between physical death and spiritual deaths like ego death. In both cases, the spirit is cleansed of worldly stains and can start over. To go back to the Hindu use of white with Shiva: he destroys as he creates, and both acts — death and life — are divine. You need death to have life, and vice versa.

The Japanese also view white as a sign of purity, peace, harmony, and “serenity and elegance.” Japan Travel further states that white, or “shiro,” is “a sacred color of the gods.” The color is used in Shinto rituals, including Shinto weddings, in which the bride wears a white kimono and head covering. Like in other Asian cultures where Buddhism is popular, white can also mean death.

Voodoo (or Vodou or Vodoun) also views white as a spiritual color. Ava Marie writes for Pagangate that white is “associated with purity and innocence,” used in rituals “to invoke the energies of the spirits of the dead and to bring about a sense of peace and serenity.” The color also represents “security, cleanliness, health, honesty, sincerity, [and] protection from rumors.”

Nader Haitian Art also writes that Haitian symbolism includes white, which means “purity, light, and spirituality.” The color is also used religiously “to represent the divine and the sacred.”

White is similarly used as a cleansing color throughout African religions, such as in Yoruba traditions, in which white, “funfun,” represents “purity and spirituality,” according to creative director and luxury design expert Eva Sonaike. The color is used during religious ceremonies to help practitioners ascend from the physical plane to the spiritual. Nkiti Designs also explains how the Niger River is represented by the color white in Yoruba clothing.

In Zulu culture, black-and-white (isigqila) beadwork symbolizes “life’s duality” and represents “balance and harmony.” In Xhosa culture, according to Nkiti Designs, white “represents the hope for a new beginning.”

There are many other cultures in the world I haven’t gotten to in this article. But I hope I have illustrated how white means more than just fascist ideology. White has a rich history in the global consciousness, and we can use Cloud Dancer as a way to reclaim white for ourselves, away from the fascist grasp.

You choose how you view Cloud Dancer

My views on the choice of Cloud Dancer as Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2026 run counter to the prevailing online consensus that hates it. I can see why the color is cause for concern — and, indeed, we should question why Pantone decided that was the color to go with.

But with that said, we can decide if we want to play into fascism by willingly calling Cloud Dancer the color of the right, or if we want to embrace the other instances of white in different cultures. Even Pantone described the color as one of purity and new starts; while Pantone could have meant something more nefarious with these words, we can choose to see these fresh starts through the lens of world traditions and religions.

In other words, we can decide what kind of power we give to Cloud Dancer. Are you going to give fascism what it wants and view Cloud Dancer as a symbol of an oppressive power that wants to feel inevitable? Or are you going to think of the color white through the cleansing, religious traditions of the global brown majority? Are you going to use white to reconnect with cultural and community ties? That choice is up to you.

As for me, I’d rather view the color white through its use in the Black Church–which ties back to voodoo–than through some fascist viewpoint any day.