What Is a Bar Brooch?
What a bar brooch is, why its narrow horizontal form suited late Victorian and Edwardian dress, and how it compares with fuller, more elaborate brooch styles.
A bar brooch is a narrow, elongated brooch worn horizontally, typically pinned straight across the collar, neckline or lapel, and valued in the late Victorian and Edwardian period as a comparatively restrained, everyday alternative to larger, more elaborate brooch forms.
What Is a Bar Brooch?
As a form, the bar brooch is defined by its simple, straight or gently curved outline - essentially a decorated bar fitted with the same pin-and-catch mechanism found on any brooch, but stretched into a long, low profile rather than a rounded or naturalistic shape. That linear form made it easy to wear neatly across a collar or neckline without competing with the rest of a garment’s decoration.
How to Recognise It
Look for a narrow, straight or slightly curved horizontal bar, usually set with a line of small stones along its length, a single stone or motif at the centre, or a restrained engraved or milled surface. As with any brooch, checking the reverse for the pin-and-catch mechanism confirms the fastening; a bar brooch’s catch and hinge sit at opposite ends of the elongated bar rather than close together as on a rounder brooch form.
When Was It Worn?
Bar brooches were everyday jewellery, worn to fasten or decorate a high collar, blouse neckline or lapel, and were especially popular from around 1880 through the years leading up to the First World War, when the style suited both day and evening dress.
Origins
The bar brooch developed as part of the broader late Victorian move toward smaller, more wearable everyday jewellery, alongside the fashion for high, structured collars that gave a slim horizontal ornament a natural place to sit. Its popularity grew further in the Edwardian period, when lighter, more restrained jewellery in platinum and diamonds was in fashion generally.
How It Changed Over Time
Earlier bar brooches from the 1880s and 1890s tended toward gold settings with a modest line of small stones or a single central motif. Edwardian bar brooches increasingly used platinum and diamonds, in keeping with the period’s taste for delicate, lace-like jewellery, sometimes incorporating a small pearl, sapphire or other coloured stone as an accent. The form declined in everyday fashion after the First World War as collar styles changed and brooch fashions generally moved toward the bolder, more geometric shapes of the Art Deco period.
Materials
Gold was standard for earlier and less expensive bar brooches, with platinum increasingly used for finer Edwardian examples. Set stones ranged from diamonds and pearls to modest paste and coloured stones in less costly pieces.
Construction
A bar brooch is built around a straight or gently curved metal bar, with the pin hinged at one end and the catch at the other, running the length of the piece. Decoration - a line of small collet-set or claw-set stones, a central motif, or an engraved or milled surface - sits along the face of the bar itself.
How It Was Worn
Pinned horizontally, typically at the collar or neckline of a blouse or dress, or occasionally on a lapel, where its narrow shape sat neatly against a straight edge of fabric rather than standing out as a large decorative centrepiece.
Who Wore It?
Bar brooches were worn overwhelmingly by women as everyday and semi-formal jewellery, valued for being versatile and relatively unobtrusive compared with larger Victorian brooch forms.
Similar Jewellery
A bar brooch is a specific, narrower variation within the broader brooch category, and is sometimes confused with a stickpin; the bar brooch’s hinged pin-and-catch mechanism, fixed to the piece itself, distinguishes it from a stickpin’s single loose pin with no catch.
Examples in Museum Collections
- Gold bar brooch with turquoise and diamonds, 1880-1910. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.142-1951. A small, plain gold bar with a single oval turquoise cabochon ringed by diamonds at its centre - the restrained, everyday version of the form.
- Gold bee on a bar brooch, English, c.1890-1900. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.99-1978. A gold bee set with rose-cut diamonds and a pearl, mounted on a gold bar, showing the bar used as a neat horizontal carrier for a small naturalistic motif. See Insect Jewellery.
- Reverse crystal intaglio on a gold bar brooch, probably English, c.1900. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, M.71-1979. A reverse-carved and painted crystal of a sailor’s hat inscribed “HMS MINOTAUR”, set on a plain bar: a personal, sentimental centrepiece of the turn of the century.
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