‘Don’t feel like you have to stop at one’: the shiny, thrifty brooch revival

The white gold and diamond brooch set like a moving snake was not the first time Zendaya wore the jewellery category most associated with grandmothers. But due to its placement, it might have been the most talked about. In attendance at the Met gala, the Dune actor pinned the Bulgari brooch to the back of her white Louis Vuitton suit.

“The Met Gala really was prime time for brooches,” Melbourne stylist Stuart Walford says.

Zendaya wears a brooch on her back at the Met Gala. Photograph: Michael Loccisano/GA/The Hollywood Reporter/Getty Images

While fashion critics have heralded the brooch’s return to menswear for several seasons, lately it has found its way to women’s lapels too. Also at the Met Gala, Sarah Snook pinned a cluster of silver brooches from Rahaminov Diamonds and Saidian Vintage Jewels to her blazer, Aimee Lou Wood and Doja Cat both wore brooches in the shape of flowers covered in tiny diamonds (by Cartier and David Webb respectively), while the event’s host, Anna Wintour, complimented her pale blue suit with an antique brooch by Lydia Courteille.

An oversized ‘crying flower’ brooch by Australian designer Edward Cuming.

At the SNL 50th reunion Tina Fey wore an art deco T-shaped brooch, Cynthia Erivo wore several to the 56th NAACP Image Awards and, more than once, the fashion writer Leandra Medine Cohen has featured a 1930s Jean Cocteau fish pin on her Substack, The Cereal Aisle.

The brooch also remained the accessory of choice for men at the Oscars with Kieran Culkin, Adrien Brody and Colman Domingo prettifying their suits with ones shaped like tear drops, feathers and ribbons – in that order.

Tina Fey attends SNL50: The Homecoming Concert at Radio City Music Hall in February in New York City. Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Perhaps unsurprisingly given their prominence on the red carpet, it’s hard to find a major fashion house that doesn’t have a brooch in its recent collections, from Gucci to Loewe and Schiaparelli. In Australia, designers Carla Zampatti, Edward Cuming and Mimco are also selling brooches.

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For Sydney jeweller Lucas Blacker, a brooch is “almost like a tattoo”.

“It is a sign from the wearer to show their personality,” Blacker says. At his studio, Black Cicada, he is seeing more clients wanting to repurpose inherited jewellery or pieces they aren’t wearing by turning them into brooches.

A guest outside the N21 show during Milan fashion week in February. Photograph: Alena Zakirova/Getty Images

Olivia Cummings, the jewellery designer behind Cleopatra’s Bling, says: “Brooches require care in their placement and a sense of ceremony in their wearing. I think people are craving that now.”

The personal statement brooch has deep roots, evolving from simple pins used to hold garments closed in the bronze age to intricate adornments that communicated class, religion and marital status in ancient Rome. In the 18th and 19th centuries, brooches became the original Instagram-holiday-post, featuring micro mosaics of the European tourist towns they were bought in. More recently, the brooches of Madeleine Albright and Queen Elizabeth II were rumoured to carry coded messages.

“Brooches are conversation starters, that’s what makes them so special,” Walford says.

Cynthia Erivo wears a cluster of brooches at the NAACP awards. Photograph: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Getty Images

In some ways the brooch’s rising popularity is consistent with the lipstick indicator, which suggests when economic times are tough people cut back on big purchases and turn to small, affordable luxuries – such as lipstick or, according to Walford, brooches. The financial appeal is twofold: they are a great item to thrift and they help the wearer freshen up their existing wardrobe without buying an entirely new outfit, he says.

When styling brooches, Walford recommends balancing the proportions with the size of your lapel. “If it’s narrow, keep things small and delicate. For a large and oversized 80s-style lapel, you could go big.”

A guest outside the Peet Dullaert show as part of Paris fashion week this year. Photograph: Raimonda Kulikauskiene/Getty Images

“Don’t feel like you have to stop at one – if we learned anything from this year’s Met Gala, it’s that a brooch can be layered and stacked.”

Alternatively, take a leaf out of Zendaya’s book and fasten one to the back of a coat or dress – just watch out for your handbag strap if you do it. “There are no rules,” Cummings says. “I also love to wear them over the top button of a shirt or pinned to a straw hat in summer.” A brooch is a great way to break up an all-black outfit, to fasten a scarf thrown over the shoulders or to add some sparkle to a basket or handbag.

Doja Cat attends the Met Gala in May. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

If you’re looking to start, or add to, a brooch collection, try searching for vintage brooches on secondhand sites such as Vestiaire Collective or online marketplaces such as Etsy, eBay and 1stDibs – the results page feels like rifling through a wealthy, bohemian grandmother’s jewellery box. Antique stores and vintage markets also often have extensive brooch collections, if you prefer to peruse in real life. From gold nose-and-mouth sculptures by Salvador Dalí to 1980s Lanvin flowers and enamel and rhinestone sea shells – each pin contains the possibility of another, fancier world.

At their best, brooches should feel like small sculptures – striking from afar but still full of detail when you come closer, Cummings says. “Weight and balance are important but above all it should carry a sense of story.”