Brooch Love

 Brooch Love!

I was prompted to write a piece about brooches, partly in order to shamelessly promote my own amazing creations (available here!), but also to address some curious backhanded criticism.
On several occasions when I've been either promoting my brooches at markets or discussing their sales, people have questioned; 'why don't you do them as hair ornaments/necklaces?', 'of course, no-one wears brooches anymore', or just, 'why brooches?

The simplicity of the last question is possibly the easiest to focus an answer on.

I love brooches!

I collect them more than any other accessory, intentionally that is, rather than just never getting rid of stuff.
I am not, and my personal style is not girly or frilly, but I'm not a minimalist; I'm concious enough of my looks not to be comfortable adorning my body noticeably with jewellery, but I love my clothes and really enjoy enhancing a garment or outfit with it's own jewellery.

You can get a flavour of the way I wear clothes from this selection of these absolute favourite garments. The brooches on these tend to stay put. They're chosen to work with each other, the fabric underneath, the buttons, and some of them are in place of buttons.
Brooches of course, have a noble history, they must have been one of the earliest ways we combined form with function. The beginning of our journey as makers of art!

Roman zoomorphic brooches from Brough Castle in Cumbria

 

 

 

 

Late Anglo Saxon brooch. 11th century from Pitney, Somerset

 

 

I do in my own collection have some 'proper' brooches;

I inherited this beautiful thing from my husband's aunt, and whilst I'm unlikely to wear it alongside the others, I'm pretty chuffed to have at least one 'special occasion' brooch!
It might be that this is the sort of thing that people think is outdated and irrelevant. That may be true, metal, and jewels can be heavy for daywear but even a quick walk through the jewellery galleries of a public collection like the one at the V&A in London will allow you to see such incredible works of art as brooches, I think you'd have to be hard hearted not to think they are a great way to celebrate craftmanship, luxury and beauty.

Here are some of my other favourites, a combination of British makers, vintage and a Beano pin badge.

The brilliant fluffy cow is by one of my first online friends Karen Suzuki of Nameless Wonders.
I'm looking forward to meeting her for the first time this year when we do a show together at Collectives Fair part of the Stroud International Textiles Festival.

The lovely spiral to the right is by a Hastings artist, Katherine Reekie. She's a brilliant painter but you can find her enamel work here: Kreekie

The groovy dog in the middle is by Janine Nelson of Smashing Chintz. I treated myself to this little fellow when we were doing a fair together. Her website is here; Smashing Chintz

The last of these which is hand made, the rabbit, is one of mine. I don't do 'shapes' at the moment, but it's using a piece of my 'scrapscape' fabric which I think works really well on animal softies.

Whatever your personal style I think there is a brooch for everyone. You don't have to go for my punk inspired look. I've put together a Pinterest page of some of the amazing brooches there are out there, check it out if you've been inspired! Brooch Love.

And don't forget to go and browse my Etsy shop for the ultimate textile loveliness on a brooch.