Z
oein’s Collection of Fine Art Jewelry Brooches is where the fantastical meets the functional. Our range of art brooches are at once timeless, fashionable and wonderfully diverse.
I
f your into fine art jewelry brooches you’re probably ahead of the game? Do you know why? Well, when you think about brooches who comes to mind?
Perhaps, women like the Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Woman of Britain, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Hilary Clinton or even Jackie-O?
Queen Elizabeth is also known for her love of stylish art brooches. It isn’t surprising because brooches inspire respect, dignity and lend an air of authority.
These regal women of modern times carry on an age old tradition of queens and noble women. The legacy of wearing fine art brooches was given renewed vigor and further popularized among the European Royals by the last Empress of France. The Empress Marie Eugenie who was married to Napoleon 111.
What you may or may not know is that originally, in ancient Greece and Rome brooches were only worn by decorated soldiers or the king. It wasn’t until after the middle ages with the arrival of fine fabrics from the east that women began to wear them.
Don’t you think that it’s a rather odd curiosity that brooches are now almost exclusively worn by women?
In the rarified world of jewelry, brooches are not only a statement of power and authority, but also provide a near perfect canvas for the rendering of fine art. With the esthetically lofty position that brooches hold, you may be surprised when you think about it because brooches were the first form of functional jewelry,
In the Brooch functional art seamlessly combines with fine art jewelry.
During ancient times, brooches were known as ‘fibula’. These were used to fasten the heavy cloaks of warriors and noble men, men who also valued symbolic meaning that decorative brooches conveyed.
Artistically rendered and symbolic Brooches have been worn since the early bronze age. In fact, by way of the stylistic variations of brooches historians have been able to better understand the chronology of the Old European world.
These early brooches, prime examples of symbolic jewelry, indicated such things as ethnicity, class and were often ornamented with sacred motifs.
Wearing brooches for distinctively symbolic purposes may have been displaced by personal preference in our day and age, but it is still evident.
Perhaps the most famous brooch in the world, the Cartier Cheetah brooch, is clearly a symbolic piece of jewelry that would be right at home in the totemistic cultures of days gone by.
This cheetah brooch is the one that the Duke of Windsor gave to the Duchess after he abdicated the throne of England.
Like the cheetah brooch, the brooches that you see above are designed to be both fashionable and resonate on a symbolic level of deep significance.
Wearing one of Zoein’s Art Jewelry brooches is like carrying a little piece of magic with you, wherever you go.