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Mi bota y mi camisa son negras, pero las de mi hermana son rojas.

Mi bota y mi camisa son negras, pero las de mi hermana son rojas.
My boot and my shirt are black, but my sister's are red.
From Lesson 139:Avoiding repetition (el de, la de, los de, las de)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about Mi bota y mi camisa son negras, pero las de mi hermana son rojas.

What exactly does las de replace in this sentence?
It replaces the nouns bota and camisa to avoid repeating them. Since both are feminine words, and together they make a plural subject (two items), we use the feminine plural article las. Together, las de mi hermana means 'the ones of my sister' or 'my sister's'.
Why are the adjectives negras and rojas plural if bota and camisa are singular?
When you join two singular nouns with y (and), they form a plural subject. Because both bota (boot) and camisa (shirt) are feminine, the adjectives describing them must be feminine and plural: negras and rojas.
If one item was masculine and one was feminine, would it still use las de?
No. In Spanish, if you refer to a mixed group of masculine and feminine nouns, the masculine plural always wins. For example, if you were talking about a shoe (zapato, masculine) and a shirt (camisa, feminine), you would use los de instead.
Why does the Spanish sentence use de instead of a word for 'sister's'?
Spanish does not have an apostrophe-S ('s) to show possession. Instead, you use the preposition de (of) to say 'the items of the person'. Here, las de mi hermana literally translates to 'the ones of my sister'.

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