The Ultimate Guide to a Modern Fine Jewelry Collection Part 3 – BROOCHES

The Ultimate Guide to a Modern Fine Jewelry Collection Part 3 – BROOCHES

Brooches are having a moment! This year, red carpets from the Oscars to the Met Gala have been filled with celebrities of all types wearing brooches in a wide variety of ways. Male stars at the 97th Academy Awards in Hollywood in March donned large and visible classic diamond brooches. Then, at the New York City Met Gala in May, both male and female celebs wore statement brooches featuring colored gemstones and feathers, wearing them in multiples or unique ways. Fall/Winter 2025 runways were also full of brooches, seen at Carolina Herrera, Tory Burch, Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton, Miu Miu, Isabel Marant, Blumarine, and more. All of this has prompted fashion editors to say the brooch is back, and this time, for good.  As brooches are expected to be a significant jewelry trend for 2025, we thought this would be the perfect time to continue our series on how to build the ultimate fine jewelry collection with a focus on brooches.

PICCHIOTTI has been celebrating the brooch since the very beginning with the award-winning rose pin that started Giuseppe’s career as a jewelry designer. (Learn more about the iconic PICCHIOTTI rose brooch in our floral high jewelry blog.) Throughout his career, Giuseppe has been inspired by both nature and architecture to create some astonishing brooches. “Of all the jewelry categories, I think brooches are the most like sculpture,” says Giuseppe. “With no restraints related to sizing or specific parts of the body, I am free to design whatever I like. The brooch category continues to expand and broaden my creativity as a jewelry designer.”

Whether you wear your brooch on the traditional lapel or in creative and contemporary ways, there are exceptional brooches of all styles to complete your fine jewelry collection. Many brooch enthusiasts collect them. Others find the one perfect expression of their individuality. Now is the time to bring out the brooch and have fun finding new ways to wear it.

Botanicals

One of PICCHIOTTI’s two primary design inspirations is Mother Nature. Long a fan of florals in high jewelry design, Giuseppe Picchiotti has been handcrafting botanical brooches for decades. The entire Flora collection is dedicated to roses and other flowers in a variety of categories (rings, earrings, and necklaces), including Rosebud and full Rose brooches with each petal furling and tender on a stem of baguette diamonds – designed and created as true to life as possible. 

Floral brooches abound over the six decades of PICCHIOTTI design.  The exquisite large flower brooch above (in the feature image at top of page) is a perfect example of how Giuseppe and his design team start with the stone and build a beautiful design around it. The center cushion-cut Spessartite Garnet is a 28.67 carat stone, all natural, unheated, with a gorgeous orange hue.  A gem so special deserves to be the centerpiece of a one-of-a-kind design. This large flower brooch features sprawling and wavy diamond petals crafted in 18K white gold that magnify the beauty of the faceted orange gem in the center. It is perfect for any lapel or scarf but can also be worn on a hat or high on the spine on the back of a tuxedo jacket, as seen on recent red carpets like the Met Gala event in New York.  

PICCHIOTTI also enjoys gathering colorful gemstones at the core of the flower.  A cluster of emeralds radiates joy at the center of a large floral brooch with white diamond petals. A reverse image duo of flowers creates an eye-catching and timeless brooch with pink sapphires as petals with a white diamond center in the smaller flower and pink sapphires in the center of white diamond petals in the other.  Nature offers so many remarkable inspirations in the flora category.

Leaves and foliage are another alluring subject for brooch design and even more universal in appeal. The PICCHIOTTI feather brooch resembles a furling leaf (or bird feather), crafted in white diamonds with a center stem of blue sapphire baguettes. This large 3” long pin makes a statement on any blazer or overcoat but also could be worn in the hair with an up-do. Similarly, a wide spade-shaped philodendron leaf creates a sizable brooch in 18K gold with a center vein of sparkling diamonds. Other foliage brooches in the PICCHIOTTI archive include colored gemstone varieties that mimic the colorful leaves of Autumn, leaves with curvilinear styles that evoke the resilient swaying of the leaves on trees. 

In the contemporary fashion world, there is no need to wear these bejeweled sculptures one at a time. Follow the red-carpet trend, and layer or mix and match your favorite flora and foliage brooches to dress up neutrals or to add some sparkle and color to your monochrome outfits.

Charming Creatures 

PICCHIOTTI also enjoys replicating some of Nature’s most charming creatures, especially in the brooch category. Land-roaming animals like Panda bears, panthers, snails, and serpents are brought to life in 18K gold with black onyx, diamonds, and various gemstone highlights. Aquatic creatures like fish and tortoises are recreated by meticulous craftsmanship with marvelous attention to detail. The serpent has long been a favorite motif of jewelers. PICCHIOTTI has an entire collection of snake high jewelry designs in rings, necklaces, wrap bracelets, and a coiled serpent brooch made with brown and white diamonds. The PICCHIOTTI turtle brooch features a beautiful turtle shell with patterns created by mother-of-pearl on a white diamond body.  A uniquely sparkling fish is painstakingly bejeweled with emeralds, diamonds, and a charming ruby eye. The slug or snail (see feature image at top), often ridiculed by society, makes a delightful brooch in stripes of black and white diamonds – a gentle reminder to slow the pace of our ever more hectic lifestyles.

The intricate natural patterns on insects like butterflies and ladybugs also inspire the jewelers at PICCHIOTTI. PICCHIOTTI butterflies have been metamorphosing in color for decades, all very popular over the years. Often the butterfly is captured mid-flight in white diamonds with accents of emeralds, pink sapphires, or yellow diamonds. The symmetrical pattern of spots on a ladybug also creates fun for jewelers to replicate. PICCHIOTTI has crafted a series of ladybug brooches in various color combinations – white diamonds with ruby spots, yellow diamonds with turquoise spots, brown diamonds with a coral head, and more.

Fun historical fact – in 1992, PICCHIOTTI participated in “A Jewel for Life” charity auction benefiting the American Cancer Society in which celebrities designed brooches that jewelers then made and auctioned off with all proceeds going to the battle against cancer. Famed opera virtuoso Luciano Pavarotti designed a scorpion brooch which PICCHIOTTI master goldsmiths handcrafted to the opera singer’s specifications with a ruby spine, emerald body, diamond accents, and 18K gold pinchers. The brooch sold at auction for a significant sum, and all of the funds went directly to cancer research. 

For birders and fans of flight, stay tuned for an entire blog post on the exotic and beautiful birds that Giuseppe Picchiotti has designed and hand-crafted for PICCHIOTTI. For many decades, he made it a priority to create a spectacular bird every year.

Decorative Motifs

PICCHIOTTI’s second design inspiration has always been architecture. The repetitive geometric patterns in Art Deco architecture and the Renaissance and Roman arcades that still exist in many Italian cities serve to inspire the PICCHIOTTI design team, especially when it comes to brooches. A simple sleek stick pin crafted with baguette diamonds, emeralds, and triangular-cut diamonds creates a very contemporary jabot that nods to the Deco past but feels fresh and exceedingly relevant for today’s brooch enthusiast. Similarly, a gold oval forms a versatile brooch with elements of emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds in a geometric pattern that can be worn on the lapel, at the neck or nape, in the hair, or even as a belt buckle. This particular piece feels highly modern and yet rooted in the subtle inspirations of the past.  

Some of PICCHIOTTI’s diamond designs are crafted in 18K white gold to amplify the sparkle of the precious and superlative white diamonds. But where brooches are concerned, architectural elements often lend themselves to yellow gold and diamonds. Swirling sinews of diamonds create a charming spiral gold brooch that comes to a point on either end, mimicking the finials on a spire or the ornamentation at the top of an Ionian column. An undulating pattern of diamonds in an oval gold brooch evokes the curvilinear detail of many friezes in Italian architecture, be they stone, wood, or plaster.  Even a simple trapezoid shape becomes a distinctive brooch in the hands of the PICCHIOTTI master goldsmiths. The white diamond pavé and the high polish gold sit side-by-side, the angular edges giving the appearance of a three-dimensional form. The simplicity of this classic style makes it all the more alluring. It is the perfect addition to a fine jewelry collection because it can be worn in many ways with a wide variety of fashions and fabrics over the decades.

Ribbons & Bows

Another iconic style of brooch is the ribbon or bow. In contemporary fashion, this style is no longer restricted by gender. While bows and furling ribbons have traditionally conjured the feminine (for example, bows in the hair), diamond brooches made to resemble ribbons and bows are now donned by all, a lovely and sparkling way to elevate a simple blazer or a chic tuxedo jacket. PICCHIOTTI has long been a fan of crafting precious metal into curling ribbons and has an entire Fiocco (bow in Italian) collection dedicated to fabric-inspired bows as earrings, rings, and more. In the brooch category, a ribbon or bow brooch adds a decorative element to basic or neutral wardrobe staples and adds a personal flair to the lapel. Choose a brooch in alignment with your unique aesthetic – a prim white diamond double-loop bow, which can also enhance a choker or short diamond necklace, or a more dramatic and vertical diamond ribbon for filling the lapel or pinning to the hair in an up-do.  Consider adding a little spice with color gemstones, such as an emerald floret at the center of the ribbon or a bright red ruby at the heart of a tied bow.

No need to limit yourself – a sophisticated fine jewelry wardrobe is likely to have at least a few brooches. Feel free to steal from mom’s jewelry box and enjoy adding new styles that speak to your personal tastes. Definitely wear your brooches on the lapel and layer them as you would necklaces for the perfect “neck mess.” But also, be daring – find fun ways to wear brooches that push the envelope ever so gently and add sparkle to your belts, bags, shoes, hairdo, nape of the neck, and more. Giuseppe suggests experimenting. “I always tell my clients to love their jewelry more by wearing it more. Brooches are a great category to add to the jewelry box, as you can try many ways to wear them that will lift your overall look and allow you to express something distinct about yourself in the process.”

Stay tuned for our future post dedicated to Giuseppe’s precious flock of exotic birds, brooches of all sizes that recreate the natural beauty of wings, beaks, talons, and more.

 

 

Feature image at top – clockwise from upper left – PICCHIOTTI Snail brooch, Sarah Snook at Met Gala 2025 (Getty), PICCHIOTTI floral spessartite and diamond brooch,  Coleman Domingo at the 2025 Oscars (Getty), Chance the Rapper at Met Gala 2025 (Getty), PICCHIOTTI diamond knot brooch, PICCHIOTTI wheat ear diamond brooch 

 

If you liked this, you might also like:

The Ultimate Guide to a Modern Fine Jewelry Wardrobe – Part 1 Earrings

The Ultimate Guide to a Modern Fine Jewelry Wardrobe – Part 2 Necklaces

Floral High Jewelry 

Colorful Geometry – 21st Century Cocktail Rings