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From Timothée Chalamet’s red carpet ‘fit to KitchenAid’s new mixer, the world is melting for this cheerful, comforting color
Every year, Pantone asks us to accept a new Color of the Year into our hearts. For 2025, we were given Mocha Mousse — but I’m not yet ready to kiss the ring of the understated earth tone. There’s been some serious competition from butter yellow, that cheerful color that resembles the shade of a stick of Kerrygold, and seems, far more than Mocha Mousse, to be taking over fashion week runways, red carpets, and home decor and cookware. Timothée Chalamet recently made waves when he sported an unconventional butter-yellow leather suit on the red carpet of the Oscars. Last month, KitchenAid unveiled Butter as its new 2025 colorway, deeming it “Color of the Year” (Pantone be damned) and explaining that 52 percent of consumers “connect a buttery yellow color with comforting homemade meals.”
As a lifelong butter lover, this is the moment I have been waiting for. Not since 2021 have we received a yellow Color of the Year from Pantone; the 2024 Color of the Year was Peach Fuzz, and, before that, Viva Magenta, which was preceded by Very Peri, and before that a rare dual color launch of Ultimate Grey and a rather brilliant, primary yellow (!) color called “Illuminating.” But 2025’s yellow is gentler, softer, creamier… fattier, and more decadent.
Aesthetically, butter yellow appeals to us for its evocation of warmth and friendliness, and studies show that shades of yellow in general tend to elicit positive emotional responses from viewers. In home decor, it brings a blend of cheery, optimistic, and nostalgic energy into a space; in fashion, it can lean into a delicate spring palette that says, “I’m not walking on sunshine; I am sunshine.”
So, how can you bring a bit of the butter yellow trend into your life? You can go the subtle route, and find some butter-hued accoutrements and apparel just in time for spring. You can also ask yourself the question, “What would Jeremy Scott wear?” and find that the answer is (hypothetically) this glittering butter purse that is shaped like a stick of Land O’Lakes. Personally, I will be taking this opportunity to pay homage to butter in general, whether that means wearing a gold butter-shaped pendant or making a pilgrimage to La Maison du Beurre Bordier.
Below, I’ve rounded up the cream-of-the-butter-yellow crop in butter-inspired home, kitchen, and style pieces.
KitchenAid’s newest star
A butter-colored cardigan
This butter-shaped baguette purse
A charming butter-shaped candle
Butter up your smartphone
BAGGU’s subtle take on the trend
An entire butter yellow cookware set
Help! I need the butter guillotine
All that glitters…
An apron that pays homage to butter
Perhaps butter yellow’s ascent is symbolic of a collective need for comfort; maybe even a gentle optimism. This gravitation towards comfort and familiarity makes sense in these increasingly stressful times, and a recent High Snobiety trend article clocked it as a vibe shift, writing, “goodbye Brat green. Hello Butter yellow.” And as Laia Garcia-Furtado explains in Vogue, butter yellow can also be embraced as a gender-expansive color that functions as “a neutral shade that shape-shifts with the rest of your wardrobe, with your personality, to become whatever you want it to become.” It’s warmth. It’s versatility. It’s butter!
Now go enjoy some salted Camargue butter, please.
