One color, five places: styling the season’s burgundy
How to use the color of the season without ending up in head-to-toe wine.
Built on: Neutrals — camel, gray, cream, navy or black. The point is that the color comes from the accessories.
Burgundy is being called the new neutral, and the fastest way to test that claim is to put it against genuine neutrals rather than against itself. A camel coat with a wine bag is the whole idea. A wine coat, wine bag, wine boots and wine scarf is a completely different and much less successful idea.
The rule that works is one, or two if they are far apart on the body. Bag and tights, for instance — hand and leg, with a stretch of neutral in between — reads as a deliberate scheme. Bag and scarf, both at the top of the body, is where it starts to look matched rather than styled.
Metal matters more with this color than with most. Burgundy has brown in it, which is why gold hardware sits so comfortably against it and why silver can look slightly cold. If your jewelry is silver, a chocolate brown bag is the better version of the same trend for you.
And a note on shade, because "burgundy" covers a lot of ground online. Photographs vary enormously and the same listing can look plum on one screen and brick on another. The safe end is darker and browner; a bright cherry reads as a red bag, and red is a much harder color to place.
