The Brooch Is Back: Nita Ambani, A$AP Rocky and Queen Camilla Lead the Pin Trend

Nita Ambani's dragonfly started the conversation in India

The Indian moment came on 31 October, the day before Nita Ambani's 63rd birthday. At the launch of The Library at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, she wore a simple beige linen pantsuit with a blush-pink lace blouse, and let one piece do all the talking. Mint reported that the brooch is Wallace Chan's "Soaring Spirit", dated 2017, a dragonfly with a 17.67-carat tsavorite garnet, coloured diamonds, a ruby, pink sapphire and a titanium body that moves with the wearer. Its estimated value, per the same report, is between Rs 12 crore and Rs 15 crore.

Indulge Express called it the one statement piece that turned a minimalist outfit into a showstopper. That is the whole trend in a sentence. Plain clothes, one bold pin.

Plain clothes, one bold pin. That is the whole trend.

The red carpet: flowers on men's lapels

Grazia rounded up the men who made the brooch look new. At the Academy Museum Gala, A$AP Rocky wore a Chanel camellia, Justin Timberlake a Tiffany flower and Alexander Skarsgård a black floral pin on an oversized white Balenciaga shirt. Footballer Lamine Yamal wore a pink anemone on a custom Chanel suit at the Ballon d'Or, and Bukayo Saka wore a Wales Bonner Compass Brooch, handmade by Ghanaian artisans.

The same piece notes that Michael B Jordan wore a David Yurman star pinned to the back of his collar at the Oscars. That is our favourite detail of the lot, because it shows the brooch does not have to sit where you expect it.

Women are wearing it casual

The women's version is less formal than you might think. Grazia spotted Naomi Watts with a corsage brooch on a pinstripe blazer worn with jeans, and Louisa Jacobson with a tumbling corsage on a pinstripe Tom Ford suit. Cynthia Erivo presented SNL UK in navy Givenchy pinstripes with two Tiffany & Co. Bird on a Rock brooches, a design Jean Schlumberger created for the house in 1965.

Notice the pattern: pinstripes, denim, a plain blazer. The brooch is doing the job a statement necklace used to do, and it is easier to move from one jacket to another.

Royal pins and wedding searches

The royals never stopped wearing brooches, but this month one got extra attention. Harper's Bazaar reported that Queen Camilla arrived in Antigua and Barbuda wearing a golden brooch from the Royal British Legion poppy shop, ahead of Remembrance Day on 11 November. The magazine noted the piece resembles the Codebreakers Brooch the Princess of Wales wore in 2019, and that Camilla wore it with her next two outfits as well.

The trend has reached weddings too. Metro, reporting data from the wedding platform Hitched, listed groom brooches among the 2027 wedding trends, with searches up 435%. In India, the sherwani brooch was never really gone, but a lapel flower on a groom's suit is a newer idea worth watching this season.

Why the brooch is trending now

Here is how we read it. A brooch is the easiest accessory to change. It goes on a blazer, a shawl, a bag strap or a cap, and it turns the jacket you already own into a new look. In a year when charms on bags and clips in hair have been everywhere, a pin on a lapel is the grown-up cousin of the same idea: small, personal and easy to swap.

It is also gender-neutral, which Grazia pointed out. The same flower pin works on a man's suit and a woman's blazer, and that is part of why it spread so quickly from the red carpet to the street.

The kids' version: patches and pins

Children have been wearing the brooch idea for years without the name. A flower patch on a denim jacket, a star on a collar, a butterfly on a school bag. The thinking is the same as Nita Ambani's pantsuit: keep the jacket plain and let one small piece carry the personality.

We would keep it to one or two pieces on a small jacket, in the same spirit as the red carpet. Three or four patches in a row start to look like a uniform badge. The picks below are the ones closest to the brooch mood.

All four are Rs 129 each and in stock at the time of writing. For more pieces in the same mood, see the trending accessories collection. If pins are more your thing than patches, our earlier trend report on the magnetic badges trend covers the pin-free version for kids' bags and jackets, and the purse bag charm trend shows the same one-statement-piece idea on a bag. Orders above Rs 399 ship free.