The 12 Best Designer Red Bags That Make Any Outfit Look Expensive and Effortlessly Elegant

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Merlot or mahogany, bordeaux or burgundy, the wide range of deep red designer bags that have skyrocketed in popularity for the fall 2024 season are investment-worthy additions to your carefully curated collection of fashionable purses.

Far from a fleeting trend of the moment, dark-hued red handbags are a timeless staple with the versatility of a neutral-colored carrier and the ability to instantly elevate both a simply stunning black dress and cool, casual denim-on-denim ensemble. The proof was on the fall 2024 runways: Chanel showed rich red quilted leather chain purses with a pastel, cotton candy-like skirt suit for day and a black leather jumpsuit for night; Ferragamo and Dries Van Noten masterfully styled darker-hued bags with red tonal attire; Louis Vuitton‘s ruby red box bag was held by a furry black mitten as a perfect pop of color to an outfit that served all-black fashion drama; and Coach debuted its new Times Square Tabby merlot-colored bag adorned with playful New York-themed charms in the hand of a model donning an oversized pink bow sweater with a black hoodie layered underneath for a result that was refreshingly youthful and effortlessly cool.

Tracking this designer dark red bag resurgence, there are a few key fashion designers who have embraced a variety of deep red shades over the past few seasons. Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski started to incorporate rich reds into her Hermès collections in fall 2022 before these rich reds painted almost half of the looks in the brand’s spring 2024 collection, which continued into the fall collection with an even darker, sexy oxblood shade. Of course, the storied French fashion house is no stranger to the color red; the brand debuted the Rouge H in 1925, a sophisticated burgundy color that eventually became a coveted colorway for Kelly and Birkin bag styles (there’s even one from 1954 in the archives of The Costume Institute at The Met).

Though several designer collections embraced burgundy red for spring 2024, Sabato De Sarno’s first collection as creative director of Gucci debuted a shade that will become synonymous with his time at the Italian fashion label: Rosso Ancora, a color inspired by the red elevators in The Savoy hotel in London where a young Guccio Gucci worked as a porter, admiring the wealthy clientele’s luxury fashions and leather goods that inspired his own brand. For fall 2024, De Sarno’s collection featured monochromatic Rosso Ancora looks with matching handbags, while also showcasing the signature red hue alongside earthy brown, olive green and pastel blue separates. Though this deep red shade now has a recognizable name, one might find it to be reminiscent of the deep red patent leather bags and shoes in Tom Ford’s fall 1995 Gucci collection that ushered in a new golden age for the then sleepy Italian fashion label.

Mixing dark red designer bags and fashions in a ’70s color palette has become a signature for Matthieu Blazy’s Bottega Veneta since his fall 2022 debut collection. This season, Bottega Veneta showed a rich red croc-embossed envelope clutch that popped against white- and cream-colored outerwear, but no one will forget Blazy’s first Bottega Veneta trompe l’oeil leather look that elevated the casual concept of a simple white tank top and blue jeans with a wine-colored Kalimero bag slung over the model’s shoulder. It reminded us of another pivotal moment in the fashion label’s history, when Lauren Hutton famously carried a deep red Bottega Veneta Intrecciato-woven leather clutch in the 1980’s movie “American Gigolo”. Hutton would carry the beloved purse once more for the brand’s spring 2017 show that celebrated Bottega Veneta’s 50th anniversary.

Be it made of lambskin, suede, patent or pebbled leather, these dark berry beauties make a handbag look even more expensive and elegant by comparison to boring black — and they’ll age like a fine wine, too.

Think it might be time to give your go-to black purse a break? Keep scrolling for the best designer red bags to carry with confidence this season.

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Meet the Author

Adam Mansuroglu is the Director of Commerce for Footwear News and WWD, overseeing strategy for shopping content on both brands, along with writing and editing shopping guides, product reviews, and shopping trend stories across fashion, beauty, home and lifestyle product categories for men and women. Prior to his current role, Mansuroglu was a fashion editor and stylist at Cosmopolitan Magazine, Style Editor at BestProducts.com, and Senior Style and Gear Editor at Men’s Health Magazine. Mansuroglu has been tapped as a shopping expert for editorial websites such as Wirecutter, and his writing has also appeared in Out Magazine, Esquire and other publications.

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