3 Reasons Why Brooches are Back in Fashion

Although they took a dip in popularity towards the end of the 20th century, brooches are back in fashion, and they’re packing a punch. They went out as being ‘old lady’ jewellery, an accessory for those who wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Golden Girls. So, why is it then that these accessories are coming back to the runways?

Let’s check out 3 reasons why brooches are back in fashion.

Retro Revival

Yes, brooches were once the go-to piece of jewellery for your grandmother, and in a sense that in itself is one of the reasons they’re back today. All the way back in 2012, Macklemore said ‘I wear your grandad’s clothes’, and thus the beginning of the retro revival is put into words.

Whether it stems from being fashionably ironic, or represents a genuine attempt to reconnect to the past, sporting fashion from the generation of our parents and grandparents has become a very popular style of dressing and accessorising.

This retro revival began roughly a decade ago, but the brooch and jewellery aspect of it is only just entering the zeitgeist now. Brooches of all kinds are becoming popular, and the brooch itself as a piece of jewellery is getting its own revival, with modern designs being produced as well.

As far as modern brooches go, the designs range massively from the cool to the kooky. A popular design style for contemporary brooches includes bright, colourful acrylics used to create statement pieces of jewellery that are often in ‘quirky’ shapes like animals or plants.

Gender-Bending Greatness

Over the last few years in particular, all elements of fashion have become more gender-neutral, with the rules about what male and female humans can wear and how they can style themselves becoming nearly irrelevant. Whether you love this or hate it, you can’t deny that the rules themselves are essentially arbitrary.

Long before the 21st century, it was entirely commonplace for men to wear jewellery, makeup, and heels. Even in the 19th century, pink was considered to be a ‘boy’s colour’, as it was considered bold and strong, and young girls were more typically dressed in blue. If you think that pink is for girls and blue is for boys, try to remember that only a little over 100 years ago the exact opposite is what people believed.

It makes sense, then, that fashion and jewellery of today is becoming more blurred, mixing masculinity and femininity together for whomever is bold enough to wear it. When it comes to jewellery, brooches are a brilliant piece of jewellery for gender-bending.

Brooches are typically worn on the lapel of a shirt or jacket, making them the perfect accessory for masculine and feminine people. They can be made to be more masculine by accessorising a suit, or more feminine by being used to tie up a scarf or accenting a dress.

Era Explosions

Throughout the last 100 years, there have been a plethora of ‘eras’, where certain styles come to the forefront of culture. At this point in the 21st century, there is a definite focus on bringing different elements of the eras of the past and using them to create new styles.

Fashion and style are cyclical, with different styles coming and going and then coming back once more. One such example of an era coming back and back and back is the Art Deco era. Art Deco brooches are typified by being bold, structural, geometric, and symmetrical. These styles emerged in the 1920s, but they have persistently been popular throughout the 20th century, and – sure enough – they’re still popular in today’s fashion and jewellery.

With eras such as this and others from the 20th century coming back once more, it’s understandable that brooches will be coming back also. Brooches were such a staple of much of the 20th century, and so it’s safe to say that their recent lack of popularity was more of a fluke than a permanent change. Instead, it seems that brooches, whether they’re Art Deco, Art Nouveau, or any other style, are here to stay.

So, there are 3 reasons why brooches are back in fashion. If you think your grandma pulled off a brooch like no-one else, now is the perfect time to sport your own as a testament to her and the styles of her youth. What type of brooch is your favourite?

Images use with kind permission from AC Silver - see their Instagram feed for more.