The smallest decision on the jacket
Every suit jacket ever made has a buttonhole on the left lapel, and almost nobody uses it. It is there because a hundred and fifty years ago a gentleman put a flower through it, and tailors have been cutting the hole ever since out of respect. A lapel pin is the modern answer to that empty buttonhole. It is the smallest decision you make when you dress, and it is the one that tells a room the most.
I wear one almost every day. Some days it is a bee. Some days it is something no one has ever seen before. The rule is that it should be small, it should be well made, and it should mean something to you, even if the meaning is only that you liked it. A pin that is any of those three is a good pin. A pin that is all three is one you will be buried in.
A pocket square says you got dressed. A lapel pin says you thought about it.
The twelve below are the places I would send a friend. They cover the whole range: the ancient houses, the studios doing something new, and the two fashion houses whose pins have become something close to insignia. Prices are the ones the makers publish and every link goes to their own door.
The twelve
1. Codis Maya, London
Hand-enamelled sterling silver · codismaya.com
The finest pins on this list and the ones I recommend first. Codis Maya has been making jewellery in England since its first collection went into Liberty in the 1980s, and the pins are done the old way: a hand illustration, then vitreous enamel fired onto solid silver, the technique Fabergé used and almost no one uses now. The motifs are what make them. A peapod. An artichoke. A turnip, for the winter harvest. A pinecone, a wheatsheaf, a bulrush. The London skyline under translucent enamel with St Paul’s and the Shard picked out in relief.
They are eleven or twelve millimetres across, which is the correct size, and they run from about $113 for the plain stone pins to around $180 for the enamelled vegetables. If you own one pin, own the artichoke.
2. Deakin & Francis, Birmingham
Founded 1786 · deakinandfrancis.com
The oldest jewellery house in England, run by the same family for seven generations in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter, and the people who made the cufflinks I wrote about elsewhere on this site. Their lapel pins are cast in sterling silver and finished by hand, and they have a sense of humour the older houses usually lack: skulls with moving jaws, foxes, hares, bees, and a whole menagerie in enamel that changes with the seasons.
A Deakin & Francis pin sits at the more substantial end of the scale, and that is the point. It reads as jewellery rather than a badge. The enamel animals are the ones to buy, and the black enamel skull is the one everyone asks about.
3. Benson & Clegg, London
9 Piccadilly Arcade, Jermyn Street · bensonandclegg.com
A Savile Row Bespoke Association tailor with two Royal Warrants and a shop in Piccadilly Arcade that is, for my money, the most enjoyable eight minutes of browsing in London. Benson & Clegg are famous for blazer buttons and club badges, and their lapel pins come from the same place: regimental crests, club emblems, university arms, and a long case of enamel and gilt that draws men from around the world.
This is the shop for a pin that means something specific. If you belong to something, they will have it or can make it. If you do not, the small enamel crown and the gilt fox are handsome enough on their own.
4. Fort Belvedere
Boutonnières and pins, made in Europe · fortbelvedere.com
Sven Raphael Schneider built Fort Belvedere as the accessories house he wished existed, and his silk boutonnières are the best answer I know to the empty buttonhole. They are hand-made flowers in silk with a short stem, sized to sit in the lapel hole the way a real carnation would, and they come in every colour a tie comes in. He also makes proper stick pins and enamel pins, but the boutonnière is the signature.
The reason to buy here rather than anywhere else is the attention to how a pin actually sits. The stem goes through the hole and behind the lapel, so nothing pierces the cloth. For a tailored jacket that matters more than you would think.
5. Fleur’d Pins, New York
Leather lapel flowers, handcrafted in New York City · fleurdpins.com
Andrew Werner is a photographer who started cutting flowers out of leather for his own lapel and ended up with a company that dresses men at the Oscars. The flowers are made in New York from lambskin, suede, patent leather and exotic skins, and they are big, unapologetic and beautiful: a black leather primrose, a crystal red patent camellia, a grey suede dahlia, a matte crocodile camellia that costs $495 and is worth every cent.
These are for black tie and for the man who is comfortable being looked at. Worn with a dinner jacket they are extraordinary. Worn with a navy suit at a wedding they are the reason people ask who you are.
6. Tateossian, London
Founded 1990 · tateossian.com
Robert Tateossian started as an investment banker who could not find cufflinks he wanted to wear, and his house is now the largest maker of men’s jewellery in Britain. The lapel pins are precise, modern and slightly mechanical, which suits a modern suit. Enamel and gunmetal, gears and propellers, and a line of semi-precious stone pins in cabochon settings that are the best plain pin you can buy for a working wardrobe.
If Codis Maya is for the romantic and Deakin & Francis is for the eccentric, Tateossian is for the man who runs a business and wants one thing on his lapel that no one will have to explain.
7. Simon Carter, London
Founded 1985 · simoncarter.net
Simon Carter began with a single design, a brass and enamel bug, and built a whole house on the idea that a man’s accessories should have wit. The lapel pins are the purest expression of that: beetles, bees, scarabs, dragonflies and moths in enamel and coloured stone, at prices that let you own several and wear the one that matches your mood.
The insects are the thing. A small enamel beetle on a grey flannel lapel is one of the great English jokes, and it is a joke that works in a boardroom.
8. Paul Stuart, New York
Madison Avenue at 45th Street · paulstuart.com
The great American haberdasher, and the shop where a certain kind of New York man has bought his accessories since 1938. Paul Stuart’s pins are in the English tradition, silk and felt boutonnières in the house colours and small enamel pieces in the accessories case on the ground floor, and the buying is as reliable as the tailoring.
What I like most is the range of flowers. A tiny felt carnation in navy or burgundy is an easy thing to wear every day, and Paul Stuart has had them longer than almost anyone in America.
9. Sid Mashburn, Atlanta
Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Washington, Los Angeles, Nashville · sidmashburn.com
Sid Mashburn has done more to teach American men how to dress in the last fifteen years than any magazine, and his stores carry an edit of lapel flowers and pins that is small, well chosen and priced so you do not have to think. Silk and cotton boutonnières, a few enamel pieces, and the same warm, unpretentious advice that makes his shops worth the trip.
Go for the flowers. A cotton boutonnière from Mashburn in a faded blue or a mustard yellow, on a tan cotton suit in June, is the best summer lapel there is.
10. Gucci
The bee · gucci.com
I have to declare an interest. I wear a Gucci bee more than any other pin I own, and I have worn it on a dinner jacket, a navy suit, a corduroy jacket and a cashmere sweater. The bee has been part of the house since the 1970s, when it came from a family crest, and the current versions, in aged gold metal with pearls or crystals, are among the few fashion house pieces that read as jewellery rather than logo.
Buy the bee. Skip the interlocking G. The bee is a bee, and a bee on a lapel has meant industry and elegance since Napoleon put one on his coat.
11. Alexander McQueen
The skull · alexandermcqueen.com
The only other fashion house whose pin has become a real emblem. Lee McQueen put a skull on everything, and the small silver-toned skull lapel pins, in plain metal or set with crystals, are now the pin of a certain kind of man in a black suit. They are beautifully made, they are small enough not to shout, and they carry more history than most people who wear them know.
A skull is a memento mori, a reminder to live well because time is short, and there are worse things to wear on a lapel than that.
12. 1stDibs, and the vintage route
Antique stick pins and brooches from dealers worldwide · 1stdibs.com
The best pin in the world may be one that no one is making any more. From about 1880 to 1930, every gentleman wore a stick pin in his cravat or lapel, and the good ones, gold and enamel with a pearl or a garnet or a tiny carved animal, survive in enormous numbers in the hands of antique jewellers. 1stDibs is the easiest way to see thousands of them at once, from dealers in London, Paris, New York and Melbourne, and a good vintage stick pin costs less than a new one from a fashion house.
Look for an Edwardian gold pin with a single stone, or a Victorian enamel piece with an animal on it. Have a jeweller shorten the pin to lapel length if it is too long. You will own something no one else has, which is the whole idea.
How to wear one
Left lapel, in or just above the buttonhole. That is where the flower went, and that is where the eye goes. A pin anywhere else on the jacket looks like a name tag.
One pin. A lapel is not a general’s chest. One pin, one pocket square, and stop.
Small beats big, except for flowers. A metal or enamel pin should be no larger than a shirt button. A leather or silk flower can be larger, because it is doing a different job.
Use the buttonhole if you have one. If the pin has a stem, put it through the hole and behind the lapel. If it has a butterfly clutch, pin it through the hole rather than the cloth. Your tailor will thank you, and so will the jacket in ten years.
And let it mean something. A bee because you never stop working. A skull because life is short. An artichoke because you like artichokes. Any of those is a better reason than a logo.
The buttonhole has been waiting a hundred and fifty years. Give it something to do.
Whatever Suits You · Style. Sound. Substance.