Brooching the Subject

Brooch targeting a trend

To borrow a phrase from Heidi Klum, in fashion one day you're in, the next day you're in... storage. Thanks to a comment from the lovely blogger Heather about some old rubber bangles, I am reminded that Everything Has a Season. But that is no reason to chuck it. If you love it, save it.

Amazingly many of these friends begin with the letter B:
> Brooches
> Beads
> Bangles
> Berets
> Bees and Butterflies (as in motifs)
and last but not least
> Belts (never throw away a good one)

Fashion and the Boomerang Effect go hand in hand. It always comes back. As surely as prairie skirts looked so yesterday's "Little House" in 1992, they looked so fetching in 2012. In fashion one must know which way the prairie grass blows.

Today's long-lost buddy would appear to be the brooch. Defined as "a relatively large decorative pin or clasp", the brooch makes a statement. You can't miss it. If a pin is described as the size of a nickel, a brooch is the size of a half-dollar. I know, there may be more brooches in circulation than fifty-cent pieces.

The brooch is never really "out". I don't think the Queen is pulling hers in and out of the safe deposit box. But look what's happened:

Good way to get your mother-in-law to like you

If Duchess Kate can wear a brooch sans irony, so can the young and restless. Thus we all follow.

Madeleine Albright knows a thing or two about brooches

As does Margaret Thatcher

Michelle Obama has fun with fashion

Ann Romney prefers pearls

Is the brooch, in this election year, a portent of the results? The last time we saw a brooch bandwagon was around 2004. What started as one piece of vintage costume jewelry perhaps perched provocatively on your jacket grew to a gaggle of expression which must have imploded from all that weight on one side.

Today I will tiptoe gingerly into brooches. I'm excited because I do have a few (dozen) lying about in the jewelry drawer. If I decide not to revisit the brooch, what a great craft project is this?