There was a time when you knew exactly where a brooch belonged: neatly pinned to the lapel of a jacket, perhaps brought out for an occasion, and very likely borrowed from a grandmother’s jewellery box. Now, it is appearing almost everywhere else. On the knot of a tie. As Buttons on white shirt. Holding a silk scarf slightly off-centre. Pinned to the pocket of a pair of jeans or clustered across the strap of a bag. The brooch hasn’t simply returned; fashion has changed the rules around how it is worn.

The tie, in particular, has become an unexpectedly good canvas. A brooch can sit directly over the knot, slightly below it in place of a tie bar, at the collar where the tie begins, or even further down towards the chest for something deliberately less precise. On a loosely knotted tie, it can be pinned asymmetrically; on a scarf worn like a tie, it becomes both jewellery and fastening. Even the end of a tie can carry one. The appeal is in the slight wrongness of it all taking two traditionally formal accessories and wearing them with considerably less ceremony.

Perhaps that explains why the brooch feels relevant again. When clothes are increasingly easy to recognise, replicate and buy, styling becomes one of the few things that still feels entirely personal. A brooch can interrupt a plain knit, change the shape of a scarf, make denim feel considered or give an old bag another life. And unlike accessories that arrive with a prescribed way of wearing them, this one seems more interesting the further it moves from its original purpose. Maybe the brooch was never outdated. We were simply pinning it in the wrong place.