Vintage brooch styling: Six ways to wear the Oscars trend in your 2026 wardrobe

Brooches were the jewellery du jour at this week’s Oscars, the second year in a row we saw the trend on Hollywood’s best dressed.

Accepting his Best Actor gong at last year’s ceremony, Adrien Brody wore a feathered brooch by Elsa Jin Studio. This year, a large-scale architectural piece by the same jeweller punctuated the silk lapel of his tuxedo, a forged swirl titanium, diamonds and one large scale sapphire.

Brody wasn’t alone with his chest adornment. Hudson Williams, a rising star of Heated Rivalry fame, made his Academy Awards debut wearing an all-black ensemble from Balenciaga, with a striking Bvlgari Serpenti brooch set against the dark suit. Pedro Pascal wore a Chanel outfit, the highlight of which was a floral brooch with fuzzy tubular quills growing from his chest.

Kiwi Kate Hawley won the Oscar for best costume design for her work in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. Accepting the award from Anna Wintour, Hawley wore a custom outfit from Wellington designer Rory William Docherty and a trio of archival Tiffany & Co brooches.

Hawley worked with jewellery house Tiffany & Co to source pieces worn by Mia Goth in the film, so Hawley’s choice to wear the designs was a clever nod to the storytelling costume choices can signal.

That’s true away from the screen and red carpet, too. Brooches have origins that aren’t only ornamental, beginning as functional items that were used to secure pieces of clothing.

The first recorded brooches were made of thorns and flint, and pins crafted from metal have dated back to the Bronze Age, serving as cloak fasteners for the Celts and Vikings.

Brooches transitioned from functional fasteners to items portraying sentimental and symbolic meaning in the 18th and 19th centuries: exchanged as tokens of love, collected as souvenirs of status and sophistication during overseas travel. Queen Victoria’s prolonged public mourning for Prince Albert spurred mourning brooches popularity, as both a private keepsake and a public signal of grief – designs often incorporated strands of the deceased’s actual hair.

Quantity

More is more. In a world of collectable crazes, a smattering of mourning pins worn in a constellation can take on an almost tchotchke quality.

Re-style a silhouette

Any blazer, jacket or coat can be restyled into a funnel neck by flipping up the neck and using a couple of brooches to pin the collar and lapel on top of each other.

Wear in your hair

There’s nothing to say you have to pin your jewels to clothing. Last week, during her royal tour of Australia, Queen Mary of Denmark placed a favoured brooch, from jeweller Ole Lynggaard, into her hair for a state dinner.

Some nifty fashionistas have been broadening the definition of what defines a brooch, unfastening decorative hair clips and barettes and clipping them to their lapels.

Play with placement

Leaving the Mugler show at Paris Fashion Week last October, Naomi Watts was seen with a brooch fastened in the middle collar of her blazer, dangling strands of diamonds mimicking a tie.

Similarly, Katie Holmes was pictured at Paris Fashion Week with two brooches fixed to the chest of a men’s striped shirt. A simple tweak – wearing the shirt backwards – gave a traditional pairing fresh energy.

A trusty tool

Reflecting their origins as fastenings, stylists often draw on brooches and pins to add polish and precision to outfits.

Tricks you can easily recreate on your own include: closing your blazer at the waist and fixing it in place with a large architectural brooch; using a pin style to hold a sweater aloft – allowing a peek of white T-shirt to puncture an otherwise dark or heavy outfit, or simply to keep a scarf in place on a breezy day.

Nine brooches to buy

Silver posy holder brooch, $1159 from That Brooch

Malene Birger Broche mini, $145 from Muse Boutique

Sterling Silver Onyx Brooch, $75 from Jems of Remuera

Blue cowgirl boot brooch, $24, from Vintage Treasure

9ct Yellow Gold Lapis Flower Brooch, $1880 from Walker & Hall

Vintage Christian Lacroix brooch, $566 from Madame Vintage France

Art nouveau style moon brooch, $41 from Bazaar Choices

Van Cleef & Arpels Lucky Animals Horse clip in 18K rose gold, Carnelian and Onyx, $16,700

Oversized Pansy brooch, $68 from Egretta Design

More on vintage

From local treasures to international influences.

How a 1970s Māniatoto farmer amassed a stellar archive of retro New Zealand fashion. Some of farmer Eden Hore’s collections, such as deer antlers, are predictable items for a high-country man to own, but it’s his collection of outstanding and dazzling New Zealand women’s fashion of the 1970s and 1980s that needs further investigation.

In a sea of designer dupes, Tango’s Driss Lambaraa remains a vintage icon. He tells Rebecca Barry Hill why Auckland’s Tango Vintage is a store as rare as the garments he stocks.

Cameron Woodcock on the enduring charm of vintage store flotsam and jetsam. From German candlestick holders to a horse’s head from a fairground ride, the vintage dealer shares his love of hunting and gathering and what makes a special piece.

Vintage v second-hand: Why getting the semantics correct matters. There’s a distinction between vintage fashion and second-hand clothes. Get it right.

Didier Ludot is the man who all but created vintage fashion. Fifty years ago Didier Ludot opened his couture resale boutique in Paris and changed style forever.