Style Tips

Peranakan Kerosang: Creative Ways to Wear Brooches

Peranakan Kerosang: Creative Ways to Wear Brooches

I’ve been asked how to wear these Peranakan kerosang three-pin sets on many occasions. I guess what people want to know is how to wear them without necessarily dressing up ‘Peranakan’.

Given our modern wardrobe, I like to imagine pairing these nonchalantly. But you know, to look stylish it will take some effort.

antique chinese gold brooch pins kerosang 20k feather 5f3c6400
This pin set is known as kerosang rantey pins.
chinese jadeite jade brooch pins kerosang 18k 5f5ab86e
Kerosang are brooches that come in a set of three pins, used to fasten the button-free kebaya (lightly woven blouson usually with embroidery).

The Laid Back Way

Adding scarves is a visual fest, even one with the whole length of it is not too much. If you have a nice scarf collection, you will love these pins. It is a matter of how to space out the brooches inconspicuously.

These Peranakan jewellery pins are detachable so you can style the set together or at separate points in one outfit.

Laissez-faire style would be to use the pins naturally when wrapping the scarf around your head/neck.

You can experiment with pinning three pins close together like in a rosette, or two together but the third without the chain.

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If the scarf is long, pin it wherever you want it to cascade to. Here only the middle brooch is pinned with the scarf, the other two free to act as ‘buttons’ or just to accent an outfit.
20k Rose Cut Diamond Brooch Hair Pin Kerosang
Peranakan kerosang
Your rosette could be jazzier than mine.

Sweater Chic

Wearing the pins with any thicker material top or sweater is lovely, especially a jacket.

Antique diamond brooches pins
Petite Kerosang
The pins serve to hold this casual sweater jacket loosely together without fastening. Whatever you wear under will peek out nicely.
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Again a long scarf is styled and pinned wherever you want it to go. You can hide or accent parts of the scarf with the lapels
kerosang petite 20k11
Another way to wear all three pins, this time in a smart ‘military’ jacket. The pins serve somewhat like lapel pins, trailing to a ribbon for a fancy touch.
Kerosang Petite
Actually using ribbons with kerosang pins will instantly revive any old outfit or up your dressing game… see next!

The Little Black Choker

Creative Ways to Wear Brooches
Can you see this as a choker or hair/head piece?

Gatsby Do

Move over diamanté hair barrettes.

Wearing actual antique diamond brooches in your hair may be a luxury, but if you’ve seen it in old photos it’s actually because ladies back then wore actual gold pins or brooches in their hair. East or West, they all did it.

It has always been an irony. The idea of putting Peranakan gold jewellery to just a hair clip is a waste but the elegant ones are of course the real deal, hence using brooches as barrettes has always been a fashion misnomer. The thing with solid gold pins set with natural gemstones is that in photos one cannot quite tell, but during special occasions or weddings I suppose there is less chance of your effort looking like a teenage-all-dressed-up-no-where-to-go.

Like this article? Our articles on rose cut vs brilliant cut diamonds, and intan diamonds may be of interest to you.

Visit our other store Singapore Island Jewellery Store for a different approach to fine jewellery.

diamond hair brooch
giardinetti kerosang7

Rose Cut vs Brilliant Cut: Types of Diamonds

Types of Diamonds: Rose Cut vs Brilliant Cut

pera pendants galore
Can you see which are hand cut diamonds, and which are calibrated?

Calibrated or Organic?

Rose cut vs brilliant cut? Let’s talk about hand cut diamonds first!

The nature of hand cut diamonds means they are uneven and as close to raw diamonds as you can get, without actually being uncut. In a certain sense, they are similar to Georgian era, very simply faceted hand cut diamonds of the Western world.

While some insist on the brilliance of diamonds, there are many who prefer an ‘organic’ look.

Like rose cut diamonds, hand cut diamonds do not shine in the predictable way calibrated diamonds do. Generally the lesser the facets/cuts, the more you can look right through the diamonds. This means it is not true only inferior quality diamonds get cut into rose cuts or organic cuts. The fact the diamond is more visible means it makes more sense to use or set diamonds that are clean for the organic look to pull off well.

Diamonds in Old Jewellery

For antique or old pieces of jewellery, they were set a long time ago when the valuation of diamonds was not like today. Hence it is more useful to consider how white or clean these organic cut diamonds are, instead of their carat weight or cut.

Here it must be added sometimes it is not how ‘white’ a row of diamonds are but how they are lined up with the same intensity. Old jewellery may not have very white diamonds (again because the standards were not the same as modern day) but the finer pieces are valued for their matched intensity in colour (matched though not necessarily white) and fire (the stones have equal shine ie. not one duller or more vivid than the others). In this sense, whiteness is less important than the idea of diamonds that appear seamless in a row.

Increasingly with the market offering diamond ‘alternatives’ – in natural stones such as white zircons (this is not the same as cubic zirconia!), moissanites and white sapphires, and in lab grown diamonds – you can get brilliance without the price tag, if all you want is shine and size, well, from a distance.

Generally we note this: the first piece of diamond jewellery is always loved for its shine/brilliance. The second (and subsequent) piece a girl gets is desired for its difference to the first. We observe that the more pieces of jewellery one has, the more she values beauty in non standard terms.

This is human nature, perhaps?

If you know how to see the old in a new way… you are what everybody wants.

For history moves story after story, cycling us like pup-pets!

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Like this article? Read our other article on rose cut diamonds, intan, and hand cut diamonds.

Want to know the difference between platinum vs white gold?

Looking for a different take on fine jewellery? Visit our other store Singapore Island Jewellery Store.