Spring is here and while the weather is warming up, we still need to chase the chill away with a cozy jacket. Now is the time to take that casual jacket and give it a spring makeover with some pretty pins scattered on your collar points.
The Edwardians were experts at wearing jewelry with brooches being a favored jewel. Fashionistas of the era didn’t just wear one brooch, they wore several at the same time creating an elegant, formal style, that was a little playful at the same time. Small brooches, or scatter pins, were worn along the neckline or strewn across a bodice.
Fast forward seven decades later to the 1980s when multiple brooches were worn on black leather bomber jackets, although these were not necessarily fine jewelry, the style was to wear myriad small pins at the same time. During the 1980s, the brooches were randomly placed or grouped together on the jacket creating an armor like feeling.
New Style
Now it’s time to tweak those two styles and bring them into the twenty-first century. Pull out your spring jackets and see which one you think will work best with brooches. For this example we’re using the collar points on a fleece bomber jacket.
Petite pins scattered on your jacket is a great way to wear those tiny little pieces that you love, but never wear because they’re too small, or they don’t go with anything. Nevertheless, you’ve hung on to them for sentimental reasons, perhaps your mom gave you a little pin to celebrate a special birthday, or you purchased a small brooch on a vacation. It’s also, a good way to start a collection of vintage brooches, smaller pieces will often have more affordable prices making them easier to acquire. And you can pick up some new brooches that build on what you already have.
Once you’ve decided on a jacket it’s time to choose your pins. The nice thing about wearing pins this way is that they don’t have to match, in fact you don’t want them to match. That being said in order to look right, the pins will need to have some sort of commonality, such as the same color metal, all yellow gold, or white gold. You may choose to have all diamond pins, or choose a specific gemstone that is in all the pieces, or perhaps you would like to create a floral theme, or have an animal motif. To really make this fun, the two collar points can have totally different themes.
On one collar point we used three items from the Edwardian era. Two petite butterfly pins and a stickpin. We angled the butterflies to create a sense of movement and we punctuated the look with a sapphire stickpin. These three items work together for a few reasons: The butterfly motif, all the pieces have diamonds, two of the three have blue in them and the pieces are all from the same era which gives them a certain synchronicity.
Pro tip: Sometimes to get a pin properly placed you have to be creative in how you use it. To get the proper placement for the stickpin, we put it on the jacket upside down, so instead of the pin pointing down, the pin is pointing up. It is between the two layers of fabric on the collar, which hides the pin, so all you see is the jewel. It also protects the pin from damage and keeps you from getting poked with it. Also, when choosing the number of brooches to use, odd numbers tend to work better together and if you can create a triangle shape for the eye to follow, you’ll have a very pleasing result.
Mismatched Style
For the second collar point, we chose a jeweled word and a simple bar brooch. We put the word in the center of the collar and then put the bar brooch underneath of it, like an underline that punctuates the word. Even though the “loved” brooch is contemporary and the bar brooch is Edwardian, these two pieces harmonize when worn together because both are mostly diamonds and they both have long, linear shapes.
Pro Tip: Place the pins where you want them to be on the jacket, then if necessary, move them around to find the best placement. It takes some time to play with brooches to get them properly positioned. Once you have decided on where you want the brooches to be placed, pin them to the fabric. Doing it this way is a lot easier than clasping, unclasping and moving the brooch multiple times. It also avoids leaving holes from the brooch clasp.
Refreshing a jacket by scattering some petite pins on the collar, or where ever you choose to place your brooches, makes it feel new again and adds the personal touch to your jacket that really makes it yours.
Edwardian diamond, ruby, pearl, 18-karat gold and platinum butterfly brooch; Edwardian diamond, enamel, 18-karat gold and platinum butterfly brooch, signed Van Cleef & Arpels and numbered; Edwardian diamond, sapphire and platinum stickpin; Diamond, emerald and platinum brooch spells out Loved; Edwardian Diamond, 18-karat gold and platinum brooch.
Authored by Amber Michelle