beyond cherry, towards tomato and wine

in march, when the autumn/winter 2026 shows had finished, the trend forecaster the impression published its verdict on the season’s colour. “the dominance of red,” it wrote¹, “shows no signs of diminishing next season.” it listed red leather at calvin klein, isabel marant and ferragamo, red satin and chiffon at chloé and celine, and floor-length red evening dresses at fendi and valentino.

read the reports closely, though, and something has shifted. the red that dominated 2024 and 2025 was a cherry, deep, glossy and slightly blue. the red of aw26 has split in two directions, warming towards tomato on one side and darkening towards burgundy on the other. so where does that leave the cherry red trend in 2026? still very much alive, but no longer the newest red in the room. which, for anyone who wears colour at the hands rather than head to toe, is rather good news.

what cherry red is

cherry sits between a true red and burgundy. it is deeper and juicier than pillar-box red, brighter than wine, and usually carries a cool, faintly blue cast that gives it a lacquered quality, especially in polished leather and patent. marie claire’s us edition described it, in february 2025, as “vibrant, juicy, and just a little bit tart”². that last word is the one to keep. good cherry red always has a little sharpness to it.

how it rose

the trend built slowly, through accessories rather than clothes, which is part of why it lasted.

there was also a mood behind it. “i am officially over beige,” wrote udita choudhary in marie claire uk in march 2025³, and plenty of people evidently agreed. after several seasons of oatmeal, camel and greige, cherry offered colour that still felt grown-up.

the cherry red trend in 2026, and the split in the red

the autumn/winter 2026 collections kept red at the centre but pushed it in two directions at once.

the first is warmer. coveteur’s runway colour forecast⁶ put tomato red at the top of its list, noting long tomato-red dresses at valentino and leather outerwear in the same shade at balenciaga, and concluding that “tomato red was seemingly everywhere” across the spring and autumn 2026 collections. tomato has more orange in it than cherry. it is sunnier and more open, and it is kinder to camel, brown and olive.

the second is darker. one independent count of colours across the aw26 shows⁷ found red falling significantly in rank compared with the previous year, and burgundy taking the place red almost always holds as the most common non-neutral colour. it is one analyst’s tally rather than an industry report, but it matches what many people will have noticed in the shops this autumn: more wine, more plum, more depth.

cherry sits exactly between the two, which is why it has not dated. it is warmer than burgundy and cooler than tomato, and it looks neither like last year’s colour nor like this year’s.

why a cherry accessory still earns its place

trends at the scale of a whole outfit move quickly. a head-to-toe cherry look from 2025 already reads as a particular moment. accessories age differently. a cherry red glove or bag is too small to look dated, and red at the extremities has been a part of classic dressing for most of the past century, through red lips, red nails and red shoes. a trend built on so old an instinct tends to leave something behind.

there is also the question of what cherry sits with. against this season’s burgundy, a cherry glove reads as a brighter, more lacquered relation, which is a sophisticated tonal pairing. against a tomato-red coat it would fight, so keep the two apart. and against the neutrals that most people still wear most of the time, charcoal, navy, black and grey, cherry looks as sharp as it did when the sardine first appeared.

how to wear it now

treat cherry as an accent rather than a look. one accessory is enough, and in autumn and winter gloves are the most natural choice, because you need them every day and they move with your hands. put them on a quiet base, the plainer and darker the coat the better. choose a smooth, slightly glossy leather, which is where cherry is at its best, a surface that catches light along the knuckles as the hand turns.

skip the full cherry outfit unless you truly love it. it was striking on the max mara runway, but in daily life it ages much faster than a single piece. and if your skin is warm-toned, consider whether this season’s tomato might suit you better. cherry flatters cool undertones most, and there is no prize for wearing the wrong red because it is famous.

wutong doesn’t make a cherry glove, and the plum of its plum python-print suede gloves sits closer to this season’s wine and plum than to cherry. the principle is the same, though: buy colour at the hands to wear for many winters rather than one season.