Brooches

  • Elegant Circle

    This brooch is perhaps one of the most elegant in my collection.  It is by the designer Andrew Lamb who is based in Scotland.  On the face of it. It is a simple design; a silver ring across which fine strips of gold and silver have been placed. But look more carefully, the strips subtly…

  • Humpty Dumpty

    This brooch is by the late great Kenneth Jay Lane.  Kenneth Lane was one of the doyens of the costume jewellery industry.  An only child born in Detroit in 1930 and by all accounts a precious and rather spoilt child.  At 15 he and his mother visited New York, in an interview many years later…

  • Triangle with Dangles

    This brooch was made in the 1960s by the Circle Jewelry Company founded by Ben Gartner and his son Michael in New York in 1958 which continued to the mid-1970s. Goldette was the company trademark.  They specialised in metalwork pieces and Victorian revival and some of their work has oriental influences.  Goldette jewellery is not…

  • Smiling Calf

    I call this brooch smiling calf, and it is one of the more unusual brooches by the Elzac company in that it is made only of ceramic.  More often, Elzac brooches were made of heavily carved wood and sculpted ceramic, and embellished with almost every imaginable material including felt, beads, cellophane, rick rack, and even…

  • Ice and a Slice

    It is time to celebrate.  This weekend Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are tying the knot so I’m raising a glass to the happy couple.  This is a rather special glass by jewellery designer and silversmith Sue Wainwright.  The main body of this brooch is made of silver with two Swarovski crystals as ice cubes…

  • Tide

    This brooch is made of silver by the Scottish jeweller Beth Legg.  Beth has created this brooch by using traditional repoussé and chasing silversmithing techniques, which involve hammering the brooch on the reverse to create the indentations.  When I met Beth she explained that the process was both time consuming and painful as the repetitive…

  • Helmet

    There is little known about ART jewellery.  Arthur Pepper founded the company in the 1940s in New York, and the company ceased trading sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.  There isn’t much ART jewellery around on the vintage market and I only have two pieces in my collection.  Every source I have found…

  • Circle and Dangles

    This brooch is designed and made by Titti Sundblom.  It is made of silver with a garnet cabochon surrounded by gold.  It was while on holiday in Finland that I first met Titti at SALT an all-female artists’ co-operative located on the Islands of Åland, in the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea between…

  • Two Bugs

    These two bugs are from the 1920s.  They are not made of precious materials, their wings are made of celluloid an early form of plastic and the legs are gilt metal.  Paste stones have been added to the head and legs to add glamour and make them sparkle.  Bugs and insects have long been a…

  • Holly

    This is a small delicate brooch made of 18ct gold with two real pearls.  I bought it from a shop tucked up a side street in London.  I would make a detour to have a look in the window and sometimes pop in.  Gradually I got to know the staff, in particular Stephen whose knowledge…