A New Spin on Pins

Dealer Benjamin Macklowe offers advice on stocking and selling brooches.

What is the appeal of a brooch for today’s consumer?
Louis Comfort Tiffany called jewelry his “little missionaries of beauty,” and brooches are the ultimate example of that, quietly adorning a woman’s chest or shoulder, spreading the gospel of color and form. Brooches have been popular since antiquity because, at their best, they are three-dimensional sculptures that speak to the personality of the wearer.
For today’s clientele, we have found that brooches appeal to the self-purchasing woman who is unafraid to project power in her jewelry. Many of my collectors buy their clothing to complement their jewelry. One of them loves wearing three to five smaller pins together. Whether a group of Art Nouveau butterflies and other airborne creatures, or a series of Victorian crescent moon brooches festooned with chunky old mine-cut diamonds, the pins are presented as if in conversation with one another.

What should you keep in mind when it comes to stocking and selling brooches?
What is important to remember is the customer profile you’re buying for. It may be that sweet enamel flowers made in Newark, New Jersey, during 1880 to 1920 are an easy seller because they’re lovely, inoffensive, petite and inexpensive. Or your customer may like David Webb and Henry Dunay, who loved to play with bold, vibrant colors and large volumes.
The extremely casual clothing women are wearing right now for the more homebound lifestyle caused by the pandemic means customers have time to take stock of their possessions. A truly meaningful jewel, be it an allegorical-themed brooch or a sculptural one, may be the most appreciated piece of jewelry in their wardrobe.

What is the availability of brooches on the vintage and antique jewelry market?
Brooches are quite plentiful on the market, with diamond brooches set in white metal dating from the 1950s [being the] most prevalent. While that category has been the least popular for some time now, geometric brooches of the Art Deco period continue to delight. Something sculptural and unexpected always finds a home with sophisticated customers like ours.

What are the construction details to pay attention to when shopping for brooches?
Brooches that can be worn as pendants sell well, as women feel they’ll get more opportunity to wear them. Also popular [are] brooches made to be centerpieces on bracelets. One way to repurpose brooches is to create hinged bangle frames, or even leather or sharkskin cuffs, which they can
be set into.

What is the best way to sell antique/vintage brooches to younger clients?
Find the “value proposition” for your younger customers and play to their emotional connection. For some, that might be turning a beloved ancestor’s brooch into the centerpiece of a bracelet or an enhancer for a necklace or the clasp on a strand of pearls. For others, it will be what the brooch says that matters, what they want their jewelry to tell the people they encounter.
Don’t make the mistake of buying brooches for “the goods.” They are an emotional and aesthetic purchase, and understanding the psychographic of a customer will bring in more purchases than simply being able to talk about the “break-up value” of the diamonds and colored gemstones.

WHO IS BEN MACKLOWE?
As the second generation to run the family business, Benjamin Macklowe has been president of Macklowe Gallery in New York since 2012, helping to grow its reputation as a respected dealer of antique and estate jewelry, French Art Nouveau decorative arts and the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany. A sought-after lecturer, he has been quoted as an expert in The New York Times, The Magazine Antiques and the Wall Street Journal.

Main image: Cartier London bangle-style bracelet, easily convertible into a brooch, in 18-karat gold and platinum set with 2.50 carats of Old European-cut diamonds and 16.70 carats of round- and baguette-cut diamonds, circa 1940. Photo: Macklowe Gallery.