Pantone Colour of the Year 2025

Hi Sarah! Tell us a little bit about yourself and how your interior career started.

Hi, I’m Sarah Limbert, I’m an interior designer and I run Poets Corner Interiors! I have been doing this for four years and prior to that I worked for 15 years in the city as a lawyer. I started studying interior design while I was still doing my legal job, my youngest had started school and I was working part-time at that point. Instead of going back to work full-time which was the plan, I started studying so that I could get some formal training behind me. When the pandemic hit with Covid, it really shone a light on how apparent it was that I should make the move to become an interior designer. It was my husband who said to me “just do it or please stop talking about it.” It really was a bit of a light bulb moment.

What’s your go to morning routine?

I always start my morning in the kitchen. I’m the first person that’s up in the house, so the first thing I do is switch the radio on and listen to the news. It’s my only opportunity in the day to find out what’s going on in the world while making myself a cup of tea. Probably an unpopular opinion, but I use a traditional kettle with a whistle on the hob because it gives me a wonderfully slow start to the morning. I take the time to sit down and go through my to do list, work out priorities before the chaos starts and my kids are up… I’ve got to get breakfast ready and everyone’s running around trying to finish their homework, so starting the day in the kitchen with my radio is a really important part of my day. 

What’s your take on Pantone’s Colour of The Year, Mocha Mousse, and how Transformative Teal fits into that?

I think probably one of the reasons why Pantone went for Mocha Mousse as 2025’s Colour of The Year was because there’s a lot on quiet luxury at the moment. Interiors tend to follow fashion, they’re very much aligned with one another, so those earthy neutral tones we’ve therefore naturally seen flow into interiors.

I think there’s a lot of drawing from the earth because people are more and more aware of the current climate crises, bringing our homes back to those calming and neutral colours and spaces has been really important when there’s a lot going on in the world. Not only do they lend themselves to creating that safe atmosphere, but a versatile one too. As a base, Mocha Mousse is a great colour to easily implement into your home, straightforward to use and style, and promotes that feeling of safety that really can elevate your wellbeing.

With Transformative Teal, again, we see that nod to elevating your wellbeing. It’s such an uplifting and joyous colour that also brings that underlying element of calm. Greens and blues have that same effect, drawing from the earth and being very natural in colour, but they’re great to incorporate as a bolder accent tone compared to those mocha mouse colour pallets. Teal is a colour that people particularly use with mocha mousse and those earthier tones because they complement each other so beautifully and fit with those calmer tones that people tend to already have in their homes.

Interestingly, there has been a real shift over the last five years with people taking more of an interest in their homes. There’s a real openness to investing in a stylish habitat and the value this has on the quality of people’s home life when you’re able to come home to your special place. Where it might have been viewed as a trivial expense, people now want to ensure they come home to their own little sanctuary after a stressful day.

Adding a little bit more blue to your Blue Monday this January, what’s your advice for incorporating teal into your home? 

In terms of thinking about colour schemes and how teal works in the kitchen, I think it’s a great colour. I actually love the combination of red and blue together and teal really feeds into that really nicely. I would style a kitchen using teal as an accent colour through accessories. I’d team it with a lovely deep, rich, reddish-brown cabinet colour with some natural oak flooring and a marble work top. Teal also works really well in a pattern, perhaps bringing in a sofa, a blind or a window seat. I also really like to mix metals, and brass or bronze work beautifully with teal for a kitchen scheme.

I think teal is a very clean colour, the brightness works great in a kitchen because you want to start your day and feel awake so having those pops of colour in the kitchen work really well because you’ve got that vibrancy. It also works great with yellows and mustards or brighter purply-pinks if you’re the kind of person that loves a brighter scheme, your kitchen is definitely a place you can do that.

When you come down to your kitchen in the morning, you want to feel awake and invigorated so that you’re ready to start your day. Switching on your radio, whether it’s a news or music programme or a podcast that really gets you going, that pop of colour really brightens and elevates your morning and it’s something that I use a lot in client schemes particularly in kitchens because the range comes in such a beautiful array of colours.

In terms of bedroom styling, what colour combinations are currently trending?

Both teal and mocha browns are colours that are derived from nature so I find quite often that clients opt for either or a pairing of these. Teal has got those green and blue undertones in which are very relaxing, safe and calming, so wonderful for bedroom spaces.

How do you style teal in living room spaces, perhaps a moodier scene?

I love to carry my radio around with me all day so in the evening I head up to the sitting room to unwind and relax and listen to some music, so I tend to style it on the mantlepiece, light some candles to create a calm and relaxed mood for the end of my day. Personally I love teal in my home as an accent colour. I love that the teal works so well with the colours in my living room and I think that it’s a really good way of adding that pop of colour into accessories. 

What pairs well with teal?

I really love the look of teal against natural materials, so it looks lovely against marble and then paired with a quite a warm pink which is really cocooning and uplifting for January. Teal has been so hotly tipped to be a huge colour trend for 2025 and beyond because it’s so mood boosting, which everyone needs a bit of in January. It’s also super versatile, so it goes with different colours, materials, textures so if you’re looking for brighter colours, bright yellow, pinks work really well, but also all the earthy tones, those beautiful browns, mochas. 

If you want to get ahead of the trend and update your home now then it’s a really good time to bring in teal. Comfort and joy are such key parts of home styling and the colour combination is really perfect with mocha mousse lending itself to comfort, cozy and cocooning with teal balancing it out as that accent of joy.

What’s the most treasured piece in your home or the piece that you would save in a fire?

The Moroccan rug in my living room. I made all my kids go to Morocco so that I could go rug shopping and spent the whole day in this one shop. You would never get out once you go in, we were there for a very long time, it was great for me, I had a great time! It’s got accents of teal throughout with lots of lovely colours throughout warm browns and reds.

Of course, to end, we always love to know what people are listening to at the moment.

A lot of Taylor Swift which is heavily influenced by my daughter. I don’t think I actually knew any Taylor Swift songs apart from ‘Shake it Off’ until the beginning of this year but now I know them all and I actually really like them. A band I really like that I’ve been listening to a lot is Salt and I really like their music. I don’t know if this is embarrassing or not but I’ve just discovered Bakermat, have you heard of Bakermat? [Laughing] Just not me! Well, just started listening and am really enjoying.