my precious; Leave understatement in the jewelry box.

There was a time when you knew where you stood with accessories. Every season there was an iconic bag and an iconic pair of shoes, and-God and wait-list willing-you'd get yours. Of course, so did everyone else. Maybe that's why this season the whole concept of "It" accessories is no longer . . . It.

We're seeing a backlash against anything generic. And as a result jewelry, both precious and costume, has begun to sparkle again. Today's most crucial buy isn't a bag or shoe, it's a brooch-a unique one, with personality and presence. Brooches twinkled like a constellation of stars at the fall collections, glinting in clusters on the lapel of a jacket or the placket of a cardigan, clasped to shoulder or chignon.

For jeweler James Taffin de Givenchy, the return of jewelry was inevitable. "It's a reaction to globalization," he says, "a response to everything looking the same. You can really make a look your own with the jewelry that you wear." There is something so intrinsically personal about jewelry (what else represents such a financial and emotional investment?) that it can't be reduced to the mere vagaries of fashion. As jeweler Solange Azagury-Partridge says, "Your taste in jewelry speaks volumes, much more so than your clothes." In de Givenchy's eyes, women who understand jewelry-and wear it whether it's fashionable or not-tend to be "women with strong personalities, who want to stand out."

Talk to these women who love jewelry, and you'll come to understand how it can be worn with real creativity: They believe in pieces that you can wear many times over. They like things that can be broken down to be worn in different ways-necklaces with pendants that detach to become brooches, for example. They think that the best semiprecious stones are better than mediocre precious gems. They are of the opinion that life is made all the better by the very presence of Verdura.

Right now, it's all about estate jewelry," says Juicy Couture's Gela Taylor. "Even if it's only costume jewelry that looks like it." (Estate jewelry, literally, is defined as anything sold from a private collection after its owner's death, but the term has come to suggest, more specifically, extravagant fine jewels.) Taylor's favorite pieces include an antique necklace that splits apart to become two bracelets; an 1816 Austrian diamond necklace; and a nineteenth-century diamond-and-ruby daisy brooch that may or may not have been made by Faberge.

Today's jewelry hounds love to mix the old with the new, the real with the fake. Making a statement with wit and whimsy is what it's ...