As head-turning brooches create a buzz at A-list events record-breaking jewellery artist Anna Hu is making a bold statement of her own.
Brooches have always come in and out of style, but the current mood certainly channels the motto “go big or go home”. The new vogue for these pinned pieces was evident at this year’s Oscars, thanks largely to a fashion-forward male contingent: Adrien Brody’s oversized, statement-making sculptural wonder; Michael B. Jordan celebrating his Best Actor win at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party with not one but three bespoke David Yurman star-style brooches; musician Jon Batiste, who paid homage to Tiffany & Co. with an equally adventurous triple-brooch look.
Brooches are no longer confined to tuxes or jacket lapels; they’re now making cameos on ties and collars. Nick Carvell is a menswear writer who contributes regularly to The Telegraph newspaper in the UK, and whose scent and style newsletter, Notes by Nick Carvell, is published on Substack. He sees the recent rage for brooches as a welcome rush of exuberance and playfulness after a long period of conformity and abiding by the rules.
“There is a move towards interesting details and considered excess, from tactile fabrics to embroidery to oversized bags,” he says. “After years of menswear being terribly serious and stiff, and all about ‘uniforms’, there is a conscious desire for self-expression in what we wear again… and jewellery is a very conspicuous way to add personality.”
One jewellery artist embracing the bold-brooch trend is Monaco-based Anna Hu. In recent years, her creations have injected an exciting frisson into what can, admittedly, sometimes be a fuddy-duddy category. Hu’s differentiation is rooted in cutting-edge materials research. Like many contemporary jewellers, she uses titanium, but her approach is more experimental and refined—by means of a signature matt finish that doesn’t quite resemble titanium and which quietly creates unique tone, colour and realism. It’s a deliberate departure from the more sheeny titanium popular across modern jewellery, presenting a more vintage feel.
“Contemporary jewellery is super shiny and striking. It’s too loud and noisy,” Hu explains. “I’m not a noisy person. I like to be very quiet. I like fine art, gouache painting, Chinese watercolour. Everything is muted.”
Her clients, too, are captivated by the result. “The challenge is to use a titanium material that does not look like titanium,” Hu says. “People feel like they’re touching ceramic, or an old antique porcelain or lacquer work. Nobody would think it’s titanium. And that’s the cool part.”
Pieces such as her Kandinsky brooch come trimmed in an almost electric-blue titanium, showcasing a futuristic finish. “I see this kind of research and development akin to Jensen Huang inventing his latest chips,” says Hu, citing the Taiwanese CEO of tech behemoth NVIDIA.
Hu may have one foot in the future, but she is also a Gemological Institute of America-trained artisan with roots set in jewellery tradition. It’s no wonder, then, that her pieces have been acquired by institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs and Moscow’s State Historical Museum. Hu’s brooches have considerable commercial cachet as well. Her Côte d’Azur Brooch evokes the shimmering surface of the Mediterranean Sea—an effect generated by moonstones, coloured sapphires, tsavorites, tourmalines, coloured diamonds and emeralds—and is topped with an asymmetric set, 58.29 ct Burmese sapphire.
The piece simultaneously notched up two auction milestones in 2013 when it hammered down at Christie’s Geneva for CHF 4.2 million (around €4.46 million), setting the record for the highest price for a contemporary jewellery artist, and the highest auction price per carat for a Burmese sapphire.
But most of all, donning an Anna Hu brooch is sure to turn heads and get tongues wagging in high-society circles, which, Carvell emphasises, is part of the allure. “Wherever you wear your brooch,” he says, “just be sure you’re in the mood to socialise as it’ll definitely start conversations all night long.”
