Burgundy on warm, rich skin tones (True Autumn)

Close without landing: with warm, rich colouring, burgundy misses the True Autumn palette by ΔE 17.1.

The answer

Close, but not a match. Burgundy sits just outside the True Autumn palette. The nearest thing in the palette is #7A3018, ΔE 17.1 away. Under 12 reads as the same colour family; past 25 the two are visibly different colours.

It does not collide with anything on the season's avoid list, so the only question is distance.

How burgundy scores across all twelve seasons

Burgundy is an opinionated colour: Deep Autumn scores it 97 and Light Summer scores it 0. A gap that wide means the colour genuinely decides something, and getting it right is worth the effort.

True Autumn sits 4 of twelve at 57, 40 points behind Deep Autumn. That gap is the honest size of the compromise, not a verdict on the colour.

  • Deep Autumn: 97 (ΔE 1.0).
  • Deep Winter: 91 (ΔE 3.8).
  • True Winter: 75 (ΔE 10.0).
  • True Autumn: 57 (ΔE 17.1) <- this season.
  • Light Summer: 0 (ΔE 42.4).

What to wear instead

Nearest first. These are the colours in the True Autumn palette that get closest to what you wanted from burgundy, so the substitution costs the least.

  • #7A3018: deep, nearest common name chocolate brown (ΔE 12.3).
  • #8C3A20: deep, a rust (ΔE 10.0).
  • #3E3226: very deep, a chocolate brown (ΔE 8.6).

Updated 19 August 2026