Showing Love To Brooches

So the topic of brooches and covering them on today's episode came to me kind of like in a dream, in a dream-like trance, a restful night perhaps.

[sighs] Well, I'm kidding.

[laughs] Um, it actually came to me when I went to St. Louis Fashion Week this past June.

I noticed that so many designers were sending looks decorated in brooches down the aisle, and me, a lady like me who's been touting the brooch renaissance for like two to three years now, was completely ecstatic.

I knew about the brooch renaissance early just due to being a trendsetter.

Um, I typically like things a few years prior to everybody else, and while that's not always the case, there's enough data to call it the trend, so...

I discovered a fascination with brooches as kind of just like a s- fun, simple accessory about two years ago at the antique mall, where I got this guy, my mourning brooch.

Well, it's not a mourning brooch, but I'll talk about that in a bit.

I got this guy a- amongst a handful of others, and I said, "Well, I'm completely obsessed with these and I'm gonna need to have them all, actually, if you don't mind." Um, [laughs] but randomly I had never looked into the genesis of brooches.

It just wasn't my business.

But now it is my business.

I've made it my duty to look beyond the surface of the brooch and understand where she came from, how we might see her carried into coming trend cycles, kind of just like all of the works ever.

So before diving headfirst into this 40-minute love letter to brooches, let's first decide what a brooch even is.

Who is she? What does she do? Who invited her here, to be honest with you? Plainly put, a brooch is a decorative jewelry item originally used for fastening garments before the ages of buttons and zippers and Velcro, [laughs] anything to fasten a garment with.

For those who can see me through the microphone or have migrated to YouTube, I'm holdi- holding this brooch.

Hey.

She's missing a gem.

I'm holding a brooch, and there's four com- key components to it that I kind of wanna talk about real quick.

Um, so we have the head, the pin stem, the hinge, and the catch.

They all function as their name describes, essentially, so no need to see the visualization, but I thought it might be fun.

The head is the decorative portion, usually housing the design.

This guy is missing a rhinestone that is super cute and fun.

Um, the pin stem is the pointy pokey part.

It pierces through fabric.

The thickness of the pin will vary and determines kind of how securely the brooch attaches to the garment.