100 Brooches by Ted Noten

Ted Noten
100 Brooches, 2005

100 Brooches is a provocative jewellery project by Ted Noten for Droog Design, created in 2005. With this work, Noten turns one of the world’s most recognisable status symbols into something unexpectedly personal and wearable.

A Mercedes-Benz is taken apart and reduced to one hundred fragments cut directly from its bodywork. Each fragment becomes a brooch, transforming an object associated with power, wealth, and aspiration into a series of intimate artefacts. What was once untouchable and monumental is divided, shared, and pinned close to the body.

The project is accompanied by a large image of the original car, mapped to show exactly where each brooch originated. This gesture preserves the link between object and source, inviting wearers to choose not just a brooch, but a specific piece of the car’s history.

With 100 Brooches, Ted Noten playfully dismantles the idea of luxury. By fragmenting a symbol of excess and turning it into jewellery, the project questions ownership, desire, and value revealing how meaning shifts when iconic design is broken down into something human-scaled, tactile, and personal.