Reader L writes to us, wondering:
Can you do an article about how to wear brooches / pins? They always look so nice on Michelle Obama. I bought two of them and have no idea if they are work-appropriate or what to do with them…
Personally, we love brooches. (Pictured above: Nonogram Pin, available at Brooks Brothers for $29.60 (was $148).) Back around 2003 it was all the rage to wear 2-4 of them (at least, it always seemed like that’s what Stacey and Clinton were advising folks to do); now, thanks to Michelle Obama, they’ve regained popularity. We’re not sure they ever went “out of style” completely, though—in other words, if you like the way they look and Michelle Obama stops wearing them for some reason, you can still wear them.
There are lots of ways to wear brooches, obviously. On the lapel of your jacket or blazer is the most obvious place — this works best with more delicate-looking
brooches, but can be done with larger brooches as well. We’ve seen Michelle wear them as ways to keep a cardigan closed; we’d advise going with a fairly muted, large brooch (the one above is a bit fancy, but would work well for this purpose) and positioning it in the middle of your abdomen — well below your breasts. We’re a big fan of wearing a large, colorful brooch with a solid-colored turtleneck or scoopneck; wear the brooch not on your chest but in the region between your clavicle and shoulder. Finally, for work, we’d also include the brooch-as-hair accessory — if you’re doing a low ponytail or a half-up do: try pinning the brooch in your hair so it anchors to the elastic — it’ll just look like a really lovely barrette.
The more shiny/sparkly a brooch is, the less appropriate it is to work (at least, for our $.02). We’d wear these kinds of brooches to dinner parties and black-tie dinners, though; pinned to the dress at the waist (either centered or at the side), or pinned to the shoulder/clavicle region. If you have two matching brooches you like, you can try to pin them to your dress at the shoulder–we’re thinking of some old scene in a Claudette Colbert or perhaps Katharine Hepburn movie where the heroine wears a sleeveless, Grecian-type drapey dress and does this.
In general, keep in mind that the brooch — worn for work — should bring attention to your face; not your chest or your outfit.
Readers, any opinions on brooches? Shop more brooches, below…
Ah, office jewelry… too much and you run the risk of looking like Tess, pre-makeover (from Working Girl
). Today’s reader mail:
I adore jewelry, and I can pull of a bit chunkier necklace, but I hate wearing earrings or bracelets at the office. Bracelets always end up hurting my arm when I’m writing, as my watch goes on my left wrist and I’m right handed, and earrings always poke into my head when I’m on the phone. I’ve gotten around it by wearing only necklaces, or taking my earrings off when on the phone much like the ladies on Designing Women, but I’d love a more modern suggestion, and to know what jewelry others are wearing!
We totally agree — it can be tricky. For our $.02, we’ve mentioned our dislike of bracelets before: bangles are too noisy and distracting, and even tennis bracelets dig into our wrists while typing. As for earrings, we haaate, hate, hate wearing post earrings for precisely that reason. Our solution has been to wear earrings with what we believe is called a “European” back — far more comfortable! — but it can be hard to find ones that are small enough to be acceptable for the office that are nice yet reasonably priced. We end up wearing a lot of “huggie” earrings (like the ones pictured at right), which hug the earlobe. (At right: Perfect Huggie Hoops in Yellow Gold by Jude Frances
, available at Amazon.com for $480.) We would argue that earrings that dangle farther than half an inch from your earlobe are a bit too distracting for work, but maybe that’s us.
In terms of other jewelry, keep in mind that office jewelry should be about restraint — you want to garnish your outfit, not embellish. You might want to pick a few small pieces, like a ring, small earrings, and a watch or necklace. You might want to pick one big piece, like a very chunky necklace (or several necklaces for a layered effect) or a cocktail ring, to be worn with bare ears and wrist or very plain accessories.
Another piece that we often mention is the brooch — they’re not as “in” as they were a few years ago, when the trend was to layer several brooches on a sweater — but we do like the way one nice brooch looks on the lapel of a blazer or cardigan, or even as used to “close” a cardigan, a la Michelle Obama.
Readers, what do you think? What do you wear in terms of jewelry at the office?
