The desire to wear burgundy

COLOR TRENDS

Celebrities like Zendaya, top left, have helped bring attention to burgundy, which has emerged as one of this fall’s most popular colors. It has been incorporated into various items, including shirts, scarves, earrings and shoes. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT, RAYMOND HALL/GC IMAGES; THE FRANKIE SHOP; SSENSE; NORDSTROM (SHOES AND EARRINGS) VIA THE NEW YORK TIMES

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By Misty White Sidell

The New York Times

Burgundy’s associations with certain hallmarks of fall — foliage, for example, or uniforms of students going back to school — have made it a color long prescribed for autumn wardrobes.

But this fall, interest in the shade has seemingly ballooned: Online searches for burgundy items like loafers, kitten heels and leather jackets have spiked in 2024 compared with last year, according to Google metrics.

Influencers are sharing head-to-toe burgundy outfits on social media, and celebrities have also brought attention to the color. Zendaya made headlines in the fashion press for wearing a burgundy leather Louis Vuitton dress to a recent event, and a new ad campaign for Hailey Bieber’s beauty brand Rhode features Alexandra Saint Mleux, the girlfriend of Formula One driver Charles Leclerc, in a floor-grazing burgundy trench coat. (Images from the campaign have received more than 2 million combined likes on TikTok and Instagram.)

Another telling sign of the color’s popularity: Charli XCX, the singer who made slimy “Brat Green” inescapable this summer, wore a burgundy Gucci trench, bra and pants last Saturday to perform at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art + Film gala.

Rickie De Sole, fashion director at Nordstrom, bullishly called burgundy “the color of the season,” largely because of the way it has permeated popular culture.

“Cultural context around color has a big impact,” De Sole said. “You see it coming at you from so many directions, and it seeps into your mind. Eventually people say, ‘I want to wear that color, too.’”

At Nordstrom, the burgundy offerings currently available include chandelier earrings from Lizzie Fortunato ($335), a double-breasted overcoat from & Other Stories ($399), a sleek wrap top from Vince ($195) and Mary Jane Weejuns loafers from G.H. Bass ($185). The shade’s prevalence of late, De Sole said, could be traced to Gucci’s spring 2024 collection, which liberally featured a new color for the brand — a plummy burgundy called Rosso Ancora.

Interior designer Kelly Wearstler, whose personal style is as considered as the spaces she fashions, said burgundy is “an intimate color that evokes so much emotion.” For the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar Netherlands, she was photographed in an oxblood Jil Sander trench coat that she bought at the vintage store Scout in Los Angeles.

Wearstler, 57, has also used the shade for recent projects like a bathroom with oxblood plaster walls and a bar with a like-colored stone countertop. She said those choices reflected a preference for “more refined, delicate and feminine” palettes in her work.

The increased appetite for burgundy comes after a period when style trends like quiet luxury and coastal grandma popularized taupe, cream and other neutral shades. Burgundy and similar hues offer a “safe but not boring way to add a little color without being too bold,” said Gaëlle Drevet, founder of the Frankie Shop, a boutique with locations in Manhattan and Paris.

Drevet used to avoid carrying too many burgundy items at her stores because her customers — who tend to skew younger and to closely follow fashion — saw it as “a more mature color,” she said.

But after noticing a change in that perception, she is offering more burgundy items this season, including a one-shoulder tent dress from the Australian label Matteau ($540) and wraparound sunglasses made in Japan by Port Tanger ($325). Drevet more broadly incorporated the color into pieces for the Frankie Shop’s in-house clothing label, too: Among them are a strapless top ($132) and a striped button-up shirt ($155).

Brigitte Chartrand, vice president of womenswear at the e-commerce site Ssense, also attributed the recent interest in burgundy to a desire for more exciting neutrals. As she put it, “How many black V-necks can you have?”

Ssense currently offers some 1,200 items it characterizes as burgundy. They include a patterned scarf from Ganni ($135), jeans with a reddish wash from the skate brand Dime ($135), a calfskin bag from SC103 ($450) and Birkenstock sandals in burgundy nubuck ($145).

Chartrand didn’t go so far as to call burgundy the color of the season, but she did frame its popularity using another form of fashion-speak. Burgundy, she said, is “the new brown.”