Ultimate Gray17-5104 · #939597

Pantone announces a Color of the Year every December for the calendar year ahead — Ultimate Gray (17-5104) is the 2021 pick. The program started in 2000 with Cerulean and has driven a season of follow-on launches every year since: fashion collections, branded products, magazine covers, and — most relevant here — paint-deck additions. By the spring after a Pantone announcement, every major US paint brand has typically pushed at least one "close to Ultimate Gray" suggestion into their marketing.

Pantone's PMS codes are a printing-and-design spec, not a paint formula. 17-5104 translates to the hex value #939597 in standard sRGB, but that hex won't match the spot-color ink chip exactly, and no paint brand reproduces it perfectly either. The closest matches above are ranked by ΔE2000 — the modern perceptual color-distance formula — across every major US deck. Pick the brand whose match is closest, or the one whose other colors you're already using elsewhere in the room. Always sample on the wall before committing; metameric shifts under different bulbs will move any "match" by a few perceptual units.