During the Victorian era, brooch designs were imbued with deep symbolism, denoting periods of mourning, affection and friendship, and accented with onyx, knots, hearts and hand motifs.
On Giorgio Armani’s fall/winter 2026 catwalk, on the final day of Milan Fashion Week, brooches were also used as decorative symbols, evoking creative lineage and succession. The show’s opening look, an everyday cashmere flannel suit, featured a red stone brooch resembling the head of a lion, pinned to its lapel. The following look, boasting near-identical tailoring, featured a brooch in the shape of a crab. The first brooch nodded to the star sign of Silvana Armani—the Armani scion tasked with taking over from her uncle Giorgio Armani who died in 2025—while the latter paid homage to Mr Armani’s own star sign.
Symbolic or simply fabulous, the brooch has been a prominent fixture elsewhere on the fall/winter 2026 runways, accenting countrified looks, like pashminas and tweed blazers, at Ralph Lauren, and the lapels of decadent tuxedos at Conner Ives. Natural motifs abounded, from Tory Burch’s fish, to the kitsch cuteness of Chopova Lowena’s kittens, squirrels and butterflies. In London, different labels proposed new takes on the fabric corsage (a notable LFW street-style hit), such as Simone Rocha’s dressage-inspired ribbon rosettes and the star-shaped brooches by Oscar Ouyang, which resembled gift wrapping bows.
The most important takeaway is that the pinning of a brooch is entirely personality-led, like the pearly or rhinestone pins which ornamented shoulders at Ulla Johnson and Moschino, or the brooches that bedazzled the necklines of hoodies and belt loops at Oscar Ouyang. “Unlike most other items of jewellery, it can multitask and work almost anywhere on the body,” Louis Circe of VickiSarge told British Vogue’s Funmi Fetto last April.
Below, the best brooches on the fall/winter 2026 runways.
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Chopova Lowena fall/winter 2026
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Chopova Lowena fall/winter 2026
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Tory Burch fall/winter 2026
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Tory Burch fall/winter 2026
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Ralph Lauren fall/winter 2026
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Ralph Lauren fall/winter 2026
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Ulla Johnson fall/winter 2026
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Ulla Johnson fall/winter 2026
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Moschino fall/winter 2026
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Moschino fall/winter 2026
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Simone Rocha fall/winter 2026
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Simone Rocha fall/winter 2026
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Oscar Ouyang fall/winter 2026
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Oscar Ouyang fall/winter 2026
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Giorgio Armani fall/winter 2026
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Giorgio Armani fall/winter 2026
This article was first published on British Vogue.
