The Tournament of Brooches!

By popular demand, I’m excited to tell you all that today, we’re kicking off…

The Tournament of Brooches! Sixty-eight brooches from the collection of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom will vie for the tournament title in our latest contest. Of course, the Queen has far more brooches than that — but I’ve selected a range that I think are representative of her collection in general. (Yes, some of your more obscure favorites will therefore inevitably be missing. C’est la vie! Her brooch collection is just too big!)

Just like the tiara tournament, I’ve put together a bracket with rankings and match-ups for us to vote on over the next few weeks. (The top seeds are showcased above! We’ve got the Cullinan III and IV Brooch, Prince Albert’s Brooch, the Williamson Pink Diamond Brooch, and the Duchess of Cambridge’s Pearl Pendant Brooch at the top of our rankings!) 

The tournament will kick off this week with a special series of posts. Those of you who watch the NCAA basketball tournaments as avidly as I do will know about the concept of the “play-in game,” where two teams compete for a final spot in their tournament region. Each section of our bracket features a “play-in” contest in the #16 spot, and you’ll get to vote all week on surprise brooch contests to fill those final spots!

Here’s the bracket for our Tournament of Brooches! You can click to enlarge the bracket above, or you can click here for a PDF version of the bracket that should be printable. (Let me know in the comments if you have any trouble accessing that link! It should be working fine.) We’ll have our first play-in contest on Tuesday morning, and in the meantime, you’ll have tiaras and necklaces to enjoy here for the rest of the day as well!

Which brooches are you hoping will go far in this new tournament?