Interior designer Jennifer Boyd discusses 2025 color trends like Benjamin Moore's "Mink" and Pantone's "Mocha Mousse," explaining how they move from fashion runways to home retailers. She recommends keeping large furniture neutral while experimenting with trends through accent walls, pillows, and throws for flexibility and durability.
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Hi, thanks for coming. Debra Dobbs with the Dobbs Group. You're here for my first podcast. Still working on the name, so I'm just calling it the Fireside Chat. Stella, hello. And I'm thrilled to be here with my dear friend, designer to the stars, Jenn Boyd, the Band of Insiders, who is here to talk about colors that are on trend. Take it away, Jenn.
Hi, so Debra and I are talking today about colors on trend, like should you do them, should you not every year.
Jen, can I ask a question?
Yes. Yes.
Okay. So like fashion, the hemline goes up, the hemline goes down. Correct. Black is in, black is out. Orange is in, orange out. So would love to know about, yes, there's an on-trend color, and is there a way that there, you know, that morphs into like interplay with the classics? Or do you just every year paint your house a different color?
Yeah, it's a good question. We all know every year we see these emails or we see on the runways, 'cause you know, it originates in fashion and design. The color of the year for 2024 is, in 2025 we have Benjamin Moore that introduced Mink as the color, which is sort of like a warm taupe.
Cocoa brown.
Cocoa brown. And then we have Pantone who really drives the color industry. Who introduced for 2025 Mocha Mousse. And that's sort of another—
which sounds like chocolate to me.
It sounds like chocolate. And it is. Except it looks exactly like dead salmon. Da da da! It is.
Which I have my bedroom and my dining room painted in Farrow Ball Dead Salmon. And by the way, not a hint of brown at all. Well, maybe there's a teeny teeny—
It's a little brown.
A little brown.. But it's pink.
Yeah, it's sort of a pink brown, I guess I would say.
Yeah, it looks like the skin of a salmon.
So the question becomes, which Debra touched on, do we embrace these colors? Do we ignore them? Do we pepper them in? They are out there. We will see them in, you know, in fashion, and then we will slowly see them come into ready-to-wear clothing. We will see them come into CB2 and Crate and Barrel and a lot of the retailers that sell home goods, you know, beyond just couture design. And—
And Hollyhun too.
Yeah, and they start to bring them into their fabric lines and things like that. So they are across, you know, price points. However, you know, I think overall, like most designers think of it as, sure, like we could use it as an accent, we could pepper it in, But really, when you're thinking about investment pieces like a large sectional sofa, you know, any kind of signature pieces that we're designing with that are anchoring a room, for the most part we go neutral. And then, and then— Why?
You can't see it 'cause it's in the room next door, but Jen and I went back and forth and back and forth, and I was a pain in the ass in figuring out what sectional sofa I wanted. Mostly not so much about design or size or style, because I was pretty easy about that.
She was.
But the fabric, because I have 3 dogs. This is just one of them. And kids and friends, and like, we eat pizza and drink red wine, and I needed a family room sofa that was a color that I could live with. And I like lights and neutrals for this particular room. But I found the perfect piece. We'll feature that maybe the next time when we talk about what is the right size sofa for your particular room. Yeah, we can talk about that. But I found a sofa at CB2, love that store, and the fabric is made out of— well, it's called Krypton or kryptonite.
Krypton.
Virtually indestructible. But also I have a white, bone white, with a little teeny fleck of a pale taupe. Taupe, yeah.
Or mink, if you will.
Or mink, if you will. But at the end of the day, there will always be a new color. There will always be a new trend.
Exactly.
And if you want to do a little refresh, like paint a small room, paint an accent wall, get some new pillows, get some throw accessories.
Like there's a lot of ways that you can incorporate the color of the year or the accent color, which is why A lot of designers, not all, because there are some designers that their signature is to design with really bold colors. For the most part, neutrals are the way to go with major pieces that anchor the room and that dominate the room. And then, you know, pepper in these beautiful things. Get, you know, a cool vase that you see, or coasters, or a couple throw pillows, or, you know, something that you don't mind, you know, replacing in a year or two. And I think that's a really fun way to use color and a fun way to use what's on trend and what's available at a lot of the stores and retailers out there.
Or the little black dress never goes out of style.
Never goes out of style. Let's be honest. We all have things that we've worn for years and years, you know, with the luck that we could still fit into them. But, you know, they don't go out of style. And I really believe that with neutrals. In Chicago, we've seen specifically where Debra and I are, we've seen kind of gray finally leaving us. Like gray has been in our color palettes of our interiors of home for, I would honestly venture to say over 10 years now. And it's time to be done with gray. So we're finally letting that go and going to like some of these warmer—
Warm, rich.
Rich colors, light and bright. More West Coast, honestly, which I'm embracing 'cause we have plenty of great days in Chicago, so.
So, thank you for coming. And we'll figure out a good exit, like little tagline. But for now, if you have an idea for a name for the podcast, send it over. If you want any information about anything presented here, want to know where to buy something, please ping me, debra@debradobbs.com. Jen at—
@thebandofinsiders.com.
Jen@thebandofinsiders.com. Thank you. And thank you from Stella.
