Pantone 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a serene shade designed to ‘reduce noise, restore balance and create space to simply be’.

The Play-Doh x Pantone 11-4201 Cloud Dancer is a creative play tool celebrating Play-Doh’s 70th anniversary that ’embodies the limitless creative possibilities of a blank canvas’.

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This curated range of hues is designed to reflect the ‘essence, complexity, and cultural impact’ of Marilyn Monroe, and launches ahead of her centennial in June 2026.

“Marilyn was the first celebrity brand we brought into the Authentic portfolio, and she continues to set the tone for how we grow iconic names with relevance and integrity,” said Dana Carpenter, Executive Vice President, Entertainment at Authentic.

“The centennial is a moment for brands to participate in a cultural event that will have global reach and emotional impact. The Marilyn Monroe Collection Palette is a platform for brands to tap into the legacy of a woman who continues to shape culture, beauty, and fashion decades after her time. Pantone’s unparalleled authority in color helps translate Marilyn’s influence into an inspirational and usable design system for today’s marketplace.

Developed in partnership with Pantone, each hue embodies a distinct facet of Monroe’s character:

· PANTONE 14-1324 TCX Peach Bud – a soft peach that complements Marilyn’s luminous complexion
· PANTONE 18-1263 TCX High Risk Red – a powerful, sultry red that captures her bold allure
· PANTONE 19-3911 TCX: Black Beauty – a deep, dark tone expressing timeless elegance
· PANTONE 11-4202 TCX Star White – a chic, effortless white evoking modern glamour
· PANTONE 17-1937 TCX Hot Pink – a hot pink celebrates Marilyn’s lighthearted spirit
· PANTONE 20-0085 TPM Golden Touch – a glittering gold, symbolising Marilyn’s screen goddess legacy
· PANTONE 20-0077 TPM Dynasty Pink – a glamorous shimmering pink representing Marilyn’s role as a symbol of femininity

“Marilyn Monroe’s timeless appeal lives on through color, with each shade in this palette reflecting a different facet of her iconic style and spirit,” added Laurie Pressman, Vice President of the Pantone Color Institute.

“We’re proud to partner with Authentic to bring her legacy to life in a bold, modern way and look forward to seeing how the palette comes to life throughout the year”

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The collection spans cushion covers, a vase, a footed tray, a regular tray, a side table, an ornamental pedestal and scented candles.

The Calm & Soothing shades include pistachio (2260C), petrol (548C), green (5545C) and mid blue (2178C), while the four colourways of Energy & Joy include pink (707C), red (3517C), orange (2027C) and apricot (2022C).

“Colour is essential for both our home and our senses – no-one understands this better than Pantone, who are the foremost experts on how colour can influence how we work and live,” said Evelina Kravaev-Söderberg, Head of Design & Creative at H&M Home.

“The H&M Home x Pantone collection allows us to highlight how much difference the power of colour makes in our day-to-day life, with a selection of modern interior objects to add to one’s home. Choose from one of the scented candles and see how the smell of red makes you feel or add a pistachio-coloured vase to your living room space, infusing a peaceful and beautiful addition.

“We hope our customers will enjoy how this collection adds to their homes and wellbeing having just entered 2023.”

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To celebrate HK Tramways’ newly acquired Guinness World Record of the world’s largest double-deck tram fleet still in operation, ISSHO46 – our own home and lifestyle platform – set out to line up with Pantone for the launch of an exclusive Pantone Hong Kong Collection.

The collaboration saw Pantone launch HK Tram Green… How does the colour link to HK Tramways?
We launched a one-off colour-naming campaign with Pantone Color Institute Asia to create “HK Tram Green” which is specific to the green colour on the tramcar body.

“This Pantone collection evokes emotions and brings up memories, capturing a part of the Hong Kong culture and history.”

With Pantone being the brand of colours, the Hong Kong Collection of course does not just include only one colour – in fact a total of six colours were chosen to represent Hong Kong. These colours are collected from ‘artifacts’ ranging from natural ecosystem to local cultural identities. The idea is to form a diverse spectrum of colours that signifies and celebrates Hong Kong history.

So how have you translated these colours into products?
It’s a very neat and concise collection comprising of loungewear, a cup and coaster set, a thermal bottle with carrier and a tote bag. In addition to the direct visual linkage to the colors’ respective origin, we’ve also tried to embody a deeper meaning in the product itself. The design team investigated the possibility of incorporating traditional craftsmanship and cultural symbols that are part of Hong Kong’s heritage in the design and the production.

Interesting. Could you give us an example?
Yes. The colour prints on the t-shirts are created by bringing together two kinds of traditional printing techniques – rubber stamp print is first used to create the pattern with distinctive texture, which is then made into a light-sensitive film for silk-screen printing by hand. This is all made possible locally in Hong Kong by our own production line, Alliance Printing & Manufacturing Co. Ltd, which started as a printing mill in 1968.

The glass cups are mouth-blown by artisans with traditional glassmaking technique before applying the colour chip decals at the bottom. The production of the coasters, on the other hand, includes a procedure that utilises wood-engraving techniques to create the reversed illustration. It is then used to translate into the graphic prints on the coasters which depict the origins of the respective colours.

Impressive stuff! And does this authentic approach extend to the entire rage?
The design of the thermal bottle carriers and the tote bags is a nod to the Hong Kong style red-white-blue bag. To those who are not familiar with it, it is a typical household carriage bag made out of nylon canvas. It originated in Hong Kong in the 1960s and has become a representative of Hong Kong pop culture due to its mass usage. With a modern twist, the design team combines colours selected in the collection to create our own version of the classic pattern.

“Not only does the collection offer products that are sustainable, the design also revives traditional craftsmanship that involves local artisans and manufacturers.”

This is our approach to bringing the colours and Pantone brand to life in consumer products – by linking colours with cultural icons and giving a spotlight on the traditional craftsmanship which allows an underlying narrative from the production level. This Pantone collection thus evokes emotions and brings up memories, capturing a part of the Hong Kong culture and history.

Absolutely. Sustainability is also a key element of this collection. Talk us through what you’ve done with regards to keeping things eco-friendly?
A fun fact is that the tram was actually the first electric transportation in Hong Kong. Although back in the day being eco-friendly was not a thing, in today’s context going green is what we are aiming for – and Hong Kong Tramways is proud of having the long history of being electric and sustainable. This is also why we believe that bringing in sustainability would be a great idea for the collection – after all, it is a global trend as well!

How easy was it to keep the range sustainable?
It was certainly a challenge, but we were lucky to have Alliance Printing as our production backup. As a printing and fabric mill for decades, Alliance Printing is capable of sustainable fabric development. The t-shirt fabric is made of 100% RPET – recycled plastic. Modern technology mechanically breaks down recycled plastics into tiny flakes, which are then melted down to be spun into yarn, producing a sustainable yet comfortable fabric.

The carrier of the thermal bottle and the tote bag are also sustainable. The key material is eco-leather – a recycled leather material that utilises responsibly sourced leather off-cuts to fuse into durable leather sheets. The material does not only give a high-grade genuine leather feel, but also reduces wastage of raw materials, which is a huge problem of today’s mass production scene. The full cycle of the product, from production through its lifetime to final disposal, is therefore able to reduce total carbon footprint.

What we are trying to present with the Pantone Hong Kong Collection is a progressive narrative that builds upon the idea of sustainability and conservation… Not only does the collection offer products that are made of sustainable and recycled materials, the way the design came along also revives traditional craftsmanship that involves local artisans and manufacturers. The Hong Kong Collection creates a dialogue that establishes a linkage between the past and the future, promoting the idea of “preserving Hong Kong” for both the natural environment and its culture.

At our last interview, we spoke about your work on a Pantone pop-up shop – and you’ve done another one! Talk us through the design of this Pantone corner.
The Pantone themed corner, which we call the “Pantone Color Hub”, is situated in ISSHO46 Hong Kong flagship store in K11 Musea, an upscale shopping mall gathering both the trendy and the luxury crowd. In fact, it’s just next to the famous MOMA Design Store!

The challenge here is to stand out among all the high-end designer boutiques, while keeping up with the trendy, futuristic elements within the context of the mall interior. Luckily, Pantone’s branding materials allow designers much flexibility to experiment with.

The team at White Studios, the design house responsible for the interior architecture of this project, put their creativity on visual communication through sculpting spatial atmosphere. We believe that light and colours exist side by side, and always complement each other. They become the key visual elements that shape the area.

Shocking pink is used to wrap the whole shop front so that it gives an immediate visual impact, helping it to stand out from a far. A combination of repetitive, directional lighting design and mirrors that help alter ordinary visual planes creates a futuristic and techno-styled look, which helps establish a bridge between the bright colour of the area and the cool metallic finish of the mall.

“It would be interesting to see if we can have exclusive collections around the world that are based on the culture of respective cities.”

The Pantone Color Hub is arranged into several semi-enclosed spaces with a combination of raised platform and angular division. This is to enhance the shopping experience by providing display layering and hierarchy, creating a variety of “moments” along the route into the shop. A nice touch by the design team is a tailor-made PANTONE vending machine that adds to the surreal atmosphere in this dreamy colourful corner.

Before we wrap things up, what does the rest of the year have in store for you guys?
Covid is hitting the world hard, and of course here in Hong Kong is no exception. But on the bright side, ISSHO46 still has plenty of new and interesting things going on at the moment. For instance, we are planning ahead to see if we can take our collaboration with Hong Kong Tramways further and, when things calm a bit, we can perhaps launch a special Pantone pop-up on one of their tramcars where we can gather a few more partnering brands for an experiential retail event.

That sounds amazing. And are there any plans to bring your collections to the UK, or any other markets?
Internationally, we are also looking for overseas opportunities for our Pantone collection and it would be interesting to see if we can have exclusive collections around the world that are based on the culture of respective city, just like what we did with the Hong Kong Collection.

Yes, maybe the team at Transport for London are reading! On that, are there plans for other brand collaborations in the pipeline for ISSHO46?
Apart from Pantone, we are working with a few up-and-coming brands that we see much potential in. WHITEGOODS, which has its own feature area in our flagship, is one of them. Co-founded by a Japanese product designer and a British architect, WHITEGOODS is a design studio that focuses on function and quality.

We find this brand interesting because it is like a clever fusion dish – taking the traditional Japanese Zen culture as a base and approaching it with modernised design strategy that suits within today’s context.

They dare to turn away from the common white-box minimalism and choose to confront life and daily objects with purism in absolute blackness. They have this redesigned black Daruma doll handmade in Japan as the brand icon which is weirdly attractive – almost like a cult – and we love it!

We believe that going forward the consumer market needs more inputs that take references from and eventually celebrates the culture, the history and the story of the people, or a place. So, if there are any brands, companies, boutiques, or individuals out there hoping for collaboration – or simply having something good to share – ISSHO46 is totally open to talk about it and we are eager to make things happen – to keep this world moving.

Great stuff, hopefully some people will get in touch! Thanks again Romario, and hope the Pantone Hong Kong collection continues to enjoy success.

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The eye-catching 600sq ft location sells a range of Pantone products, including the FunMix collection spanning bedlinen, loungewear, slippers, towels, and blankets – and a limited-edition tablewear range.

To find out more about what went into bringing Pantone to life as a retail experience, we caught up with Issho46 Director Romario Lai.

Hi Romario; great to connect! First up, Issho46 – what’s the meaning behind the name?
‘ISSHO’ means ‘a lifetime’ in Japanese; while ‘46’ indicates the percentage, according to research, of a life that an average person would have spent staying at home. We dedicate so much time to being at home, so we need to respect that time and make it worthwhile. Inspired by Japanese culture of respecting and accrediting life and home, Issho46 is dedicated to curating home and lifestyle products that speak for uniqueness, quality, well-being and character.

It’s a stat that makes total sense but is also a bit of an eye opener! Before we dive into the Issho46 brand and its Pantone collaboration, how did you find yourself in this line of work?
I studied in UCL at the Bartlett School of Architecture and had also worked in several architectural design firms before I joined Alliance Printing & Manufacturing Co. – the parent company of Issho46 – because I didn’t want to just work in architecture.

Alliance was initially a manufacturer of fabric dying and printing in Hong Kong, founded in 1968, which found itself a position in the home and lifestyle licensing industry in 2000. The company offered me an extended platform where I could further apply my creativity in different realms.

So, is Issho46 a brand in its own right as well?
Issho46 is a brand itself but it is more of an alter ego for Alliance Printing. Alliance Printing is a very industrial-sounding name. It doesn’t sound like a brand, or even a retailer! Issho46 is the identity for our direct-to-retail business, as well as our upcoming ecommerce platform.

Great. You mentioned there that Alliance started off in fabric dying and printing. What led the company to get involved with brands?
From 2000, we started working with ESPRIT as a licensee for bed and bath and we still work with them in the home and lifestyle area. We like to work long-term with brands, with partnerships that span years. We treat these partnerships as if they were our own brands, and that also extends to what we’re trying to work out with Pantone now.

Yes, on that, how did this Pantone partnership come about?
In the home and lifestyle category, we mainly work on bedlinen projects. There has always been a huge demand in plain solid colour designs. However, with the brands we have worked with before, it’s often been quite unsuccessful, in my opinion, to come up with a nice solid colour addition to an otherwise pattern-dominated collection. The fact that solid colour designs are sometimes deemed as an ‘addition’ or ‘side range’ is one of the reasons why these additions are not doing the job.

Another huge factor, I believe, is the lack of connection between these solid colour products and the brand context. Pantone being the world library of all colours and the expert in colours meant that intuitively it was a perfect match with any solid colour products. We approached Pantone and it all developed from there.

What did those first few creative steps look like when working with Pantone?
There are almost unlimited opportunities with the Pantone brand. It’s focused on colour and everything needs to relate to colour, and how colour connects with emotions. This was key to our team deciding what we could do with the brand.

We also like to look at the histories and ideologies of brands, and that helps shape what we want to do. You have to have a story to tell. It helps for the design, but it also helps when it comes to the retail environment. You want a story to tell there too, and everything should link back to the brand context.

You’re telling quite a story with your Pantone store – the Pantone Lifestyle Gallery. It looks superb. What guided your design of the store?
It was a collaboration between Alliance Printing and White Studios – an artist collective I founded with a few other creative minds. White Studios was responsible for the architectural design and the marketing campaign. A lot of it harked back to my architectural exposure. When we designed it, we looked at the context of the store and the Pantone Lifestyle Gallery is actually its own space within a large bookstore called Eslite.

We knew we had to create a casual, welcoming environment, so it had to be spacious. We didn’t want to cram it full of product. Some traditional retail environments try to show off all their merchandise because of a belief that they need a certain amount of product per square feet to sustain business. However, if you look at high-end shops, they don’t do that. They realise that space is very important in generating a welcoming retail atmosphere for customers to shop, and that’s our main concern. We didn’t want to disturb the comfortable atmosphere that the Eslite bookstore already has.

We then looked at how bookstores are usually laid out, and this led us to look at zoning within libraries. Each genre of book has its own zone at a bookstore, so we thought about doing zoning with colours. Also, by having a zone dedicated to one colour, it can have a real visual impact. This set the key concept for the store design.

Were there key hurdles to overcome with the space?
The main architectural material of the bookstore is wood and dark greyish metal. Both contradict with colours – and with Pantone. Pantone is about colour, it’s not about wood and natural texture. We ended up wrapping the whole area in colour, and we even wrapped the ceiling, so the blue area has blue carpet, a blue sideboard and a blue ceiling.

The same week we covered the Pantone Lifestyle Gallery, we also covered the Harry Potter store in New York and the Corona pop-up stores in Mexico. Do you think we’ll see more brands embrace these kinds of creative retail executions moving forward?
I think so. We didn’t start this trend, but we are following it. Pop-up shops are interesting for both retailers and customers. The public get to see something different and limited, so you feel you have to come in or you’ll miss it!

For the retailers and the brands, it provides a creative shopping experience where you can showcase something more about the brand and the specific collection, as opposed to the usual retail-oriented environment. We’re actually planning with some retailers and venue providers at the moment for future pop-up experiences under Issho46 and Pantone.

We’ll keep an eye out for those. Now, we should talk about the product you’ve created for Pantone too. Why does Pantone work so well in bedding?
Well first, I have to mention Copenhagen Design – the design company behind a lot of Pantone hardware products, like mugs, notepads and umbrellas. They’ve done a great job already, and some customers know their Pantone products, so that helps a lot.

Pantone transitions to consumer products better than a lot of other brands, and it has a strong relation to fashion trends and fashion colours, as well as home trends and home colours. That makes it a good brand to do home and lifestyle products and home textile is one strong category not to miss.

We’re actually designing our second and third collections with Pantone right now, and they’ll be very different from the first. The second will be a small capsule focused on colours that are specific to Hong Kong. For this, we are partnering with Hong Kong’s most iconic public transport that was established in 1904 and we want to focus on culture, history and identity in relation to colours. Sustainability is also a key ingredient. To link all these together, the team is able to come up with a way to present the colour that creates a unique design language that speaks for the collection.

That sounds exciting! Before I let you, looking ahead, what other sorts of brands are you looking to collaborate with?
We’re very open, as long as the brand has a story to tell. Whether it’s a new brand, an old brand or a brand that’s – on paper – completely unrelated to the home and lifestyle space, we’re open to collaboration.

Great stuff. A huge thanks again Romario for making the time! Good luck with the rest of your Pantone launches.

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The 600sq ft location sells a range of Pantone products, including the FunMix collection spanning bedlinen, loungewear, slippers, towels, and blankets.

The store will also house a limited-edition tablewear collection, which includes cups dishes and bowls.

Issho46 plans to launch an online store in June, with further Pantone brand collaborations in the pipeline.

Check out the Pantone Lifestyle Gallery below:

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