Existential changes influence the shades that will color fall/winter 2025-26 fashion, according to a color-expert duo.
London-based trend-forecasting group WGSN and color authority Coloro say a focus on wellbeing, the environment, creativity and technology will influence the color trends brands choose in the F/W 25-26 season.
The key shades “reflect urgency, repair and reassurance as we face new necessities in this new reality globally,” according to Urangoo Samba, WGSN head of color, pointing to “acceleration” as the forecast’s “overarching theme.”
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“As the climate crisis brings chaos and strange omens of decline, we will see an acceleration of change, both good and bad,” she added.
The color experts pinpointed five hues, including Celestial Yellow and “meditative and sensual darks” Future Dusk and Cherry Lacquer, which “speak of the search for restoration, whether it be looking out to cosmos for guidance, or turning our gaze inwards for solace,” Samba said. Retro Blue evokes dependability as well as nostalgia, underscoring a need to connect with what is comforting and recognizable, while “bright tones such as Neon Flare, mirror the beauty and strangeness of nature, and the urgency and activism required to bring it back to a place of balance,” she added.
The partnership between WGSN and Coloro blends trend forecasting with solutions that ensure color accuracy. WGSN trend experts choose tones from Coloro’s 3,500 color library, and all forecasted colors are run through Coloro’s Feasibility Intelligence solution, which ensures that shades are achievable on most materials. The tool leverages historical data so that colors meet colorfastness and testing standards.
Neon Flare, a bright digital red, stands in contrast to the rest of palette. “The color is not achievable on cotton and has limited lightfastness on nylon, but Coloro provides brands with the knowledge of how they can find appropriate and achieve ways to introduce that important pop of neon color while avoiding all the frustrations of misapplications,” Sansan Chen, managing director of Coloro, said. “This showcases the importance of a balanced approach that I’m sure is mirrored in our clients’ businesses and how creativity and technical expertise is always working together for the win.”
The color has its roots in hazard and disaster signs—“a warning to repair,” Chen added. “As the planet faces code red and climate anxiety becomes more pervasive, this AI-inspired color has an igniting and stimulating effect.” Color and trend experts believe it signifies collective urgency as society strives to solve its most pressing issues. “Its charged character speaks to the need to come together and restore our spirits in a burst of communal effort and energy,” she said.
Coloro and WGSN chose Future Dusk, a blue-purple hybrid, as the Color of the Year for 2025, citing its “dark and moody qualities” that inspire a sense of mystery and escapism. “This surreal and otherworldly shade also has a celestial and futuristic character, inspired by the emergence of the second space age,” they said. “It aligns with themes of moving from darkness to light, dusk to dawn, preparing us for new horizons.”
Darkly brooding Cherry Lacquer offers a luxurious appeal. “In a world where niche is the new normal and outsiders are the new insiders, this color looks to subcultures such as punk, metal and goth for inspiration, and has a sense of intimacy and pulsating intensity,” WGSN and Coloro said. The subversive shade enforces themes of resistance and rebellion “in the age of rage and uncertainty,” but its seductive quality feeds into a sense of “radical escapism and self-empowerment.”
The deep red contrasts with Retro Blue, a familiar teal with a warm, sentimental quality. “It has an undercurrent of soft joy and innocence brought on by memories—aligning with the rise of kidults and nostalgic sentiments re-imagined among Gen Z,” the groups said. With a Y2K feel, the color was inspired by designs that are “made to be loved, lived in and laundered.” Its denim-like quality calls to mind “dusty vintage finds, and the frugal joys of repurposing and revisiting pre-loved items.”
Luminous Celestial Yellow brings to mind the cosmos, especially the moon, stars and sun, evoking feelings of restoration that are simultaneously “surreally off-kilter.” The color’s enlightened quality “will appeal in a world of screen-based, digitally disconnected lifestyles, encouraging us to slow down and embrace the passing of time,” the groups said. It will also appeal to those fascinated by astrology and astronomy, while also drawing influence from colors seen in nature.
The yellow hue is reminiscent of Lemon Drop, Pantone’s key pick for Spring/Summer ’24, which taps into “nostalgia and transformation,” and a “more positive way of living.”
