During the past month, I lost two beloved Swarovski brooches– both at airports. One was a geometric cluster of three ovals, the other was kind of like a twig of laurel leaves. To make up for this loss, I started looking online for some nice brooches, and found that despite the abundance of products on the web, there is no decent brooch that suits my taste.

For starters, I really don’t like brooches shaped like animals. It’s so weird how so many brooches are designed after animals– and not cute dogs or cats, but lobsters, lizards, turtles, and peacocks. Then there are a lot of insect brooches– spiders, beetles, bees, grasshoppers, etc. There are also a lot of flower and leaf-motif brooches, but most of them look very similar. I also don’t like brooches that are very seasonal; I have 3 Christmas brooches (all received as gifts) and rarely get to wear them.

I started wearing brooches when I started wearing business suits. A black suit can be very drab, and so you need some color or sparkle to spice it up without going overboard. Silk neck scarves can sometimes do it, but there is the danger of looking like a flight attendant. I can’t wear necklaces because I have a very short neck, which is why earrings have to be long and dangly– inappropriate for extremely formal settings. So after many trials and errors, I ended up investing on brooches, which became a statement of some sort.

Finding a brooch for business purposes was surprisingly difficult, because most brooches on the market tend to be designed for elderly women or for playful purposes and do not look professional. That is why I found Swarovski brooches (not the ones of animals) to suit my purposes most well and would wait each season for the newest arrivals. The hard part is finding something of good quality that doesn’t cost more than $200, and have a unique design but not too artistic as to clash with formal business attire.

So that is my story about my personal relationship with brooches– now to return to the present…
I’ve scoured ebay and amazon and haven’t found anything mildly interesting– except for a handmade silver thing shaped like a moebius circle, slightly reminiscent of Tiffany’s Gehry line. I’ve also tried museum shops, which have fascinating jewelry, but mostly very ancient-looking for a young woman. Etsy has a lot of nice felt brooches and beautiful corsages, but again, nothing that would proper for conservative business attire. Please let me know if you know any great places with (affordable) modern-design brooches! [Example: Georg Jensen has great brooch designs, but unaffordable]