There is a brooch in a lot of women's jewellery boxes that hasn't been worn in thirty years. It arrived via inheritance, or was bought on a whim at a market, or was given by someone who thought it was nice and received by someone who wasn't sure what to do with it. It sits in a corner of the box with a slightly bent pin, behind the earrings that get worn constantly and in front of the necklaces that come out occasionally. It is waiting.
The brooch spent roughly three decades in exile. This was not because it became ugly or poorly made. It became associated, at some point in the 1980s, with a generation of women whose style the following generation had decided to reject: the twinset-and-pearls register, the dressed-for-the-parish-committee aesthetic, the carefully coordinated. The brooch went down with all of it. Daughters who grew up watching their mothers pin things to their lapels concluded that lapel-pinning was something that happened to other kinds of women.
What's changed is not fashion, exactly. Designers have been putting brooches on runways intermittently for twenty years without shifting the cultural needle much. What has changed is that the daughters are now in their forties and fifties, and the grandmothers whose style they were avoiding are now gone, and the pieces have come around to looking like themselves again rather than like a rejection they needed to make.
The result is that the brooch is being worn again, not as a costume gesture, not ironically, but as a considered piece of jewellery with a specific function. It does things that other jewellery cannot do. A necklace sits where a neckline puts it. A brooch goes where you decide. That is a different relationship with a piece, and it produces different results.
In Brief: Brooches fell from favour in the 1980s through generational rejection, not because they ceased to work; Victorian and Edwardian estate pieces now sell for £150–£1,500 at UK dealers. Pin placement determines everything: set it high on the lapel near the notch, and the piece reads as intention rather than afterthought.
Brooch Placement: Quick Reference
| Location | Works best for | Key rule |
|---|---|---|
| Upper lapel, near the notch | Structured jackets and blazers | Pin higher than feels right — middle of lapel reads as afterthought |
| Upper chest, off-centre | Collarless shirts and jackets | Becomes the sole focal point; works especially well with plain white |
| Shoulder of knitwear | Cashmere and substantial wool (16-gauge+) | Use rollover clasp, not C-clasp; avoid fine-gauge knits |
| Scarf or neckerchief | Silk or light scarves | Primarily functional here — holds shape better than a knot |
| Bag flap or strap | Structured leather bags | Pin high on the strap where it sits stably; avoid suede |
| Clustered group | Any location above | 2–3 pieces within 6cm; vary scale slightly; keep metals consistent |
What a brooch actually does
The practical function of the brooch — the thing it was invented to do — was to fasten. The fibula, the Roman precursor, held a toga closed at the shoulder. The medieval brooch held a cloak. Even as it became decorative, it retained the structural logic: a brooch is a pin, and pins have purposes.
Modern clothing rarely needs fastening in the ways that earlier garments did. But the brooch's fastening function has taken on new forms. It holds a scarf in place without tying it. It pulls a wrap closed. It pins the corner of an open collar flat. It anchors knitwear that moves too much. These are real uses for a real object, and they are why the brooch is not simply decorative but compositional. It makes an outfit behave differently.
The other thing a brooch does is direct attention. A ring or earring sits where anatomy puts it. A brooch sits where you put it, which means it controls where a viewer's eye goes. This is more power than most jewellery has over a composition, and it is why the placement matters as much as the piece.
Lapel
The lapel is where most people start, which is fine, because it works. On a structured jacket or blazer, a brooch pinned to the left lapel (conventionally) sits at approximately collarbone height and reads immediately as intentional. The rule is simple: pin it higher than feels right. Most people's instinct is to put it at the middle of the lapel, which reads as an afterthought. Closer to the notch (where the lapel meets the collar) reads as a decision.
What to avoid on a lapel: anything so heavy that it drags the fabric. Thick wool blazers can carry a substantial piece; light linen cannot. If the lapel is pulling down under the weight of the pin, the brooch is too heavy for the fabric.
On a collarless jacket or a shirt (no lapel in the traditional sense), pin it at the upper chest, slightly off-centre. This works particularly well with a plain white shirt, where the brooch becomes the only point of interest in a deliberate way.
Scarf and knitwear
The more interesting contemporary uses are off the lapel. A silk scarf or neckerchief, pinned rather than tied with a brooch, sits differently from either a knotted scarf or a flat scarf: it has body without the bulk of a knot and holds its shape over the course of a day in a way that tied fabric rarely does. The brooch here is primarily functional and secondarily decorative, which is the best reason to use one.
On knitwear (a cashmere sweater, a substantial cardigan), pin the brooch at the shoulder or upper chest. This position works on knitwear in a way it doesn't always work on woven fabric because knitwear has enough give to accommodate the pin without pulling. A good pin mechanism is important here: look for a rollover clasp rather than a simple C-clasp, which can work loose on soft fabric. The brooch should be large enough to be visible relative to the surface of the knitwear but not so heavy that it distorts the shoulder seam.
Avoid pinning anything to very fine knitwear, anything that could be damaged by the pin hole. Cashmere at sixteen-gauge or heavier is fine. Sea Island cotton and other fine-gauge knits are not.
On a bag
A brooch pinned to a bag strap or bag flap is one of the things currently being done very well by the segment of the population that has figured out how to wear brooches again. The advantage is that the bag fabric is usually robust enough to carry a heavier piece without distorting, and the brooch reads differently on a bag, as a personal mark on an object rather than a garment, which changes its register from formal to personal.
On a structured leather bag, pin to the flap. On a soft bag, pin to the strap near the shoulder, not at the bottom of the strap, where it will move constantly, but higher, where it sits more stably. Canvas and thick leather work well; very fine suede or anything napped is not suitable for pinning.
Clustering
The clustered brooch — two or three smaller pieces worn together rather than one large one — is the more contemporary approach and is currently more wearable than the single statement piece for anyone who finds the formal brooch register uncomfortable. Three small enamel brooches pinned in a loose arrangement on a jacket lapel is a different aesthetic from one large jewelled piece, and it accommodates a wider range of occasions.
When clustering, vary the scale slightly: one slightly larger and two smaller reads better than three identical pieces, and keep the cluster tight enough that it reads as a group rather than as three things that happened to end up on the same lapel. Six centimetres of space is approximately the limit before it stops reading as an arrangement and starts reading as indecision.
What to buy
If you are acquiring a brooch rather than inheriting one, Victorian and Edwardian pieces are the most available and represent the strongest value in the current market. Gold enamel pieces in good condition (the pansy brooches covered in the Language of Flowers piece, the forget-me-not motifs, the floral cluster brooches of the late Victorian period) are available through estate dealers and at the London auction houses for between £150 and £1,500 depending on the complexity and condition of the enamel.
The thing to check is the pin mechanism. On antique pieces, the C-clasp is the original fitting, and many have been replaced or repaired at some point. A rollover conversion (where a modern rollover clasp has been added to an original brooch frame) is not a problem and is often preferable for wearability. A broken or loose C-clasp that has not been addressed is a problem, because a dropped brooch is a lost brooch, and fine antique enamel does not survive hard floors.
For contemporary pieces, the houses currently doing the most interesting brooch work are Schiaparelli (theatrical, expensive, worth knowing about even if not buying), Erdem, and the mid-market British jewellers who have been making enamel and stone brooches for decades without anyone paying attention and are now seeing sustained interest.
The grandmother question
The title of this piece is slightly disingenuous, because the honest answer to the grandmother question is: your grandmother was right.
She was right about brooches the way she was right about other things that went out of fashion and came back. The brooch is a more versatile piece than a necklace because it is not constrained by a neckline. It is a more deliberate piece than a ring because you have to decide where it goes. It is a more interesting piece than almost anything else in a jewellery box because it has a specific function: it fastens, it anchors, it directs. Function produces meaning in a way that pure decoration rarely does.
The brooch in the corner of your jewellery box, with the slightly bent pin and the stone that turns out to be a garnet rather than a ruby, is probably wearable. The pin can be straightened by any jeweller in twenty minutes. The question of where to put it is answered above.
Frequently asked questions
Where do you pin a brooch on a jacket or collarless shirt?
The most common position is the upper left lapel of a jacket or blazer, pinned close to the notch rather than at the middle of the lapel. Other effective positions include the upper chest of a collarless shirt, the shoulder of a knit sweater, pinned to a scarf or neckerchief, or on a bag strap or flap.
Are brooches in fashion in 2026?
Yes, and without the ironic distance that characterised their earlier runway appearances. The brooch revival is being driven as much by women in their forties and fifties returning to inherited and estate pieces as it is by designer collections. The revival is genuine rather than trend-dependent.
How do you wear a brooch on knitwear without damaging it?
Use a brooch with a rollover clasp rather than a C-clasp, which is more likely to work loose on soft fabric. Pin to heavier-gauge knitwear (cashmere at sixteen-gauge or above, substantial wool) rather than fine-gauge or delicate knits. If unsure, pin to the shoulder seam area rather than the body of the fabric, where the knit is reinforced.
How do you wear multiple brooches together on a lapel?
Cluster two or three pieces in a tight arrangement (within roughly six centimetres of each other) on a lapel or upper chest. Vary the scale slightly: one slightly larger piece with two smaller reads as an arrangement; three identical pieces reads as a uniform. Keep the metals consistent or deliberately mix them; what doesn't work is mixing metals accidentally.
What is the difference between a C-clasp and a rollover clasp on a brooch?
A C-clasp is the traditional simple pin fitting on antique and vintage brooches: the pin slides through the fabric and hooks into a C-shaped catch. A rollover clasp adds a rotating barrel that locks the pin in place. Rollover clasps are more secure, particularly on soft or loose-weave fabrics. Many antique brooches with C-clasps have been or can be converted to rollover by a jeweller.
Sources: Victoria and Albert Museum brooch collection documentation; Diana Scarisbrick, Jewellery in Britain 1066–1837 (Michael Russell, 1994); Contemporary retail research on UK estate brooch market pricing, 2025–2026.
