A vintage brooch is the perfect way to accessorize without contributing to fast fashion. But the flipside of investing in a timeless brooch, is that no matter what you do for a living, you are also guaranteed to look like a teacher. Scroll through these vintage designs and decide which one should start your burgeoning brooch collection.
1. Wiry Brooch with Gold, Platinum, and Diamonds ($3792.05 on Etsy)
This upscale investment piece is a delicate work of art. Speaking of art, if you pin this brooch to your blouse, you will also appear as though you teach art to middle schoolers. Pass the cray-pas, please.
2. Vintage Dancer Pin ($519.00 on Etsy)
Pearls, rubies, sapphires, a tiny gold dancer leaping toward the buttons on your modest cardigan—what more could you ask for? (Besides better wages negotiated through the teachers’ union, am I right…?) This brooch looks like it is meant to become a family keepsake. Or you could gift it to your star student who has perfect attendance.
3. Carved Turquoise Brooch ($192.00 on Etsy)
This brooch is a genuine vintage piece from the 1920s. A fitting choice, considering you look like you’re dressed to assign the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby for homework in your AP English class. Just because you’re about to teach your kids about the bleak emptiness that often accompanies compulsive consumption doesn’t mean you can’t splurge. Live a little!
4. Shell Brooch by Dior ($212.00 on Etsy)
This funky gold-plated conch has a beachy vibe, so you can keep summery thoughts close by all year round! Oh, how you look forward to June, when you finally get a much-needed break from grading papers!
5. USSR Vintage Leningrad Pin ($89.00 on Etsy)
Okay, this is uncanny…a Soviet pin from the 1950s when you have been prepping your PowerPoint for a lecture on the Soviet Union in the 1950s? Crazy. Wait, when is the AP test?
6. Carved Cameo Pin ($330.00 on Etsy)
This beautiful piece screams Teacher of the Year. When your students see it, they will definitely want to know where you got it. You’ll be a trendsetter!
What’s that? You’re not actually a teacher, you just look like one, and I’ve become way too absorbed in the bit? I don’t understand. Maybe you can explain this to me during office hours.
