Why brooches are taking over the red carpet – as seen on Leonardo DiCaprio, Tilda Swinton and Michael B. Jordan

Brooches began life with a far more practical role. In the Bronze Age, fibulae (Latin for “clasps” or “pins”) were used to fasten garments, functioning much like a safety pin to hold cloth in place.

By the medieval period, they had developed into more complex forms, most notably the penannular brooches worn across Celtic and Viking cultures – open rings with a movable pin designed to secure heavy fabrics, their surfaces often worked with intricate patterns that nodded to rank, wealth and regional identity.

By the time European dress tipped into its most ornate phases – from the Baroque through to the Georgian era – the brooch had shifted more firmly into the role of ornament. Men pinned gold and diamond-set pieces to coats and hats, using them as small but unmistakable markers of status. Napoleon Bonaparte was among those to adopt the practice, incorporating brooch-like ornaments into his imperial wardrobe. One such piece, long thought lost after the Battle of Waterloo, resurfaced centuries later and sold for around US$4.4 million at auction in Geneva last year, underscoring just how much symbolic and material weight these accessories can carry.

As tailoring became more restrained over the course of the 19th century, the brooch slipped out of regular use, replaced by smaller, more discreet accessories that better suited the mood of the time. It resurfaced in the early 20th century, particularly during the art deco period, when diamond-set pieces once again found their place within formal dress. Around the same moment, Indian maharajas were reworking the idea on an altogether grander scale, wearing elaborate gem-set turban ornaments known as sarpech – distinct in form, yet driven by the same instinct to use jewellery as an expression of identity and power.