How Have Luxury Brooch Designs Celebrated Death And Life?
What makes luxury brooches so special even in relation to other beautiful forms of handmade jewellery is that the relatively simple function allows for so much attention to be placed on form, detail and intricacy.
A brooch is designed to keep a cloak, cape or scarf in place, but in reality, can be affixed nearly anywhere, and because it is designed to be striking and deeply meaningful, a well-designed brooch by a skilled designer using high-quality materials has the scope to send a big message through its design.
The best example of this can be found in one of the shortest-ever design movements in the lengthy history of brooches, one that came as a direct response to one of the longest periods of collective mourning in modern history.
The Victorian movement as pertains to brooches is, like most other artistic movements in the 19th century, split in half between the period before the death of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert and the period after.
Brooches were hugely popular in the Victorian era, particularly ones with ornate flower designs, micromosaics and natural imagery, but when Prince Albert died, that changed dramatically.
Designs were altered to use jet, black onyx and other dark primary materials, whilst designs focused on the funereal, the elegiac and the sombre.
Whilst Queen Victoria would largely only wear black jewellery herself for the rest of her life, eventually the trend shifted less from mourning the departed to mementoes of the living, often with designs featuring hair or locket-like portraiture.
By 1895, the trend had dramatically shifted towards Art Nouveau, a distinctly more vibrant response to the Victorian era, with designs that pushed brooch design to its limits with elaborate flowing designs, focusing on nature, sensuality, insects and floral imagery.
The movement did not last very long by itself, largely falling out of favour by the First World War, but through jewellery, it created a movement that celebrated life, one whose effects can still be felt in the creativity of modern brooch designers.