Studio, Spotted 01
I bet you’ve noticed the gems.
If your feed is anything like mine, they’re everywhere. Hair, nails, teeth, clothes, bags, cups, phone cases, beauty products… and, yes, I’ve even seen some dogs get involved.
And I’m not just watching this one from the sidelines.
If you’ve spoken to me in person over the last few years, you might have noticed the gems on my teeth. If you saw me at Brighton Pride, you may have spotted my DIY-bedazzled, second-hand Paris Hilton top. And there has long been boxes of gems, badges, pins, ribbons and more spread across my own home too.
But it’s not just bedazzling that keeps catching my eye. Badges are everywhere again. Brooches are clustering across jackets. Bags have charms hanging from charms. There are bows, rosettes, beads, patches and Jibbitz. We seem to have collectively decided that if something can be decorated, personalised or have something dangling from it, we’re going to give it a go.
We’re decorating everything. And I love it.
Not necessarily every individual version of it, we’ll come back to the bedazzled single-use plastic, but the bigger behaviour behind it.
Because if you’re interested in fashion history, subcultures and the way people use clothes and objects to communicate who they are, none of this feels entirely new. The gems immediately bring me back to the Bedazzler, rhinestone-heavy Y2K and embellished denim. The badges and brooches take me somewhere else again, to punk, DIY and the way subcultures have long used what they wear to stand out and find their people.
Go back much further and we’re still decorating ourselves.
So rather than asking whether bedazzling is “back”, I think the more interesting question is: why do we keep coming back to decoration and personalisation, and why does this particular version of it feel so right, right now?
We’ve been doing this for a very long time
Jewellery is perhaps the most obvious place to start.
Go back as far as ancient Egypt and adornment was already doing much more than making something look beautiful. Jewellery could communicate wealth and status, carry deeply personal meaning and was also believed to offer protection or strength.
Source: British Museum, Egyptian Jewellery.
Obviously, an ancient Egyptian amulet and a Jibbitz-covered Croc in 2026 are not the same thing. But I find the thread between them fascinating because, for thousands of years, we’ve used the things we wear and carry to tell other people something about ourselves.
That might be status or wealth, but it can just as easily mean this is the band I love, this is somewhere I’ve been, this was given to me by someone important, this is what I believe, or simply I like this and I want you to know it.
Decoration and personalisation can therefore do two seemingly opposite things at once. They help us stand out, but they also help us find our people.
Standing out, together
Punk is where that idea gets particularly interesting for me.
I’ve always loved the contradiction in subcultures like punk, dressing partly to reject the mainstream while simultaneously creating a visual language that helps you recognise your own people.
In 1970s Britain, clothes were torn, pinned, chained, written on and reconstructed. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren famously incorporated distressed fabrics, chains and safety pins into designs that became part of punk’s deliberately provocative visual language.
But it’s the ordinary DIY stories that I find even more interesting.
London Museum has documented the story of Dave Smith, who began making his own badges in 1977 because he couldn’t find badges for the bands he liked. He cut pictures from magazines, drew his own designs and made them himself. Eventually, they became part of what he called his “punk uniform”.
Source: London Museum, London punk: a personal history through objects; V&A, Vivienne Westwood: Punk, New Romantic and Beyond.
I love that because he couldn’t buy the thing that expressed what he liked, so he made it. I had a badge maker in my teens & 20’s and would do this myself with the many music and fashion magazines I hoarded, including some I had specially imported from the US. I LOVED being able to make myself and my friends badges that were completely one off and special to us, so this story is very close to my heart.
There’s rebellion in that, but there’s belonging too. A badge can differentiate you from one group while making you instantly recognisable to another.
Standing out, together.
I’m not sure that part has changed as much as we might think. The objects are different and the communities might now form on TikTok rather than in a record shop or gig queue, but we’re still using what we wear to say this is me and, sometimes, these are my people.
Bedazzlers, badges and a lot of rhinestones
This is also why the current gem obsession feels so familiar.
The Bedazzler itself grew out of an earlier rhinestone and stud-setting product, which immediately makes me think of Beverly Goldberg from The Goldbergs. The show actually used some of the real Beverly Goldberg’s famously bedazzled clothing, a detail that makes me ridiculously happy as both a fashion nerd and a second-hand and vintage devotee.
The Bedazzler became established by the end of the 1980s, before becoming firmly embedded in the glittery craft culture many of us associate with the 1990s. The appeal was beautifully simple: take something ordinary and make it your own.
The appeal was beautifully simple: take something ordinary and change it yourself.
Source: Mental Floss, The Retro History of the Bedazzler.
Then came Y2K and rhinestones were everywhere. Tracksuits, denim, logos, handbags and phone cases all got the treatment. The V&A has described the era rather perfectly as one of “rhinestone-studded everything”.
Source: V&A, Can You Guess the Y2K Trend?
Beyond whatever fashion was officially “in”, there was all the personal stuff we did ourselves too. School bags covered in badges, pencil cases scribbled on and decorated, friendship bracelets, iron-on patches, stickers, phone charms and customised denim. Things were collected on holidays, swapped with friends or accumulated over time.
That distinction matters to me because it wasn’t always about buying the perfectly finished version of something. Often, the fun was in doing something to it.
The product as a blank canvas
Crocs and Jibbitz might be one of my favourite commercial examples of how powerful that idea can become, particularly because Jibbitz didn’t begin as part of a huge global brand.
It started as a family idea. Sheri Schmelzer and her three children were decorating their own Crocs when she realised that small, interchangeable accessories could fit into the holes in the shoes. That idea became Jibbitz, a family-run business started from their home in Boulder, Colorado.
Within a remarkably short space of time, that small idea had become a serious business. By 2006, Jibbitz had more than 300 designs being sold through 4,000 retail accounts across the US and Europe. Crocs acquired the company that year for $10 million upfront, with the potential for a further $10 million depending on performance.
Source: Crocs Inc., announcement of the acquisition of Jibbitz LLC, 2006.
Individuality, turned all the way up
One of the terms being used for the current version of this is chaotic customisation.
WGSN coined the term to describe the move towards extreme personalisation, accessorising accessories, adding charms to shoes and bags, embroidery, trinkets, DIY alterations and layering things rather than carefully choosing one finishing touch.
Source: Vogue Business, Gen Zs want chaotic customisation. How can brands tap in?
It feels like an appropriate description. Bags have charms attached to charms. Brooches are worn in clusters. Ribbons, beads, badges and bows are layered together. Trainers and Crocs become collections in themselves. It’s less about one carefully chosen accessory and more about building something up.
And then there’s whimsymaxxing.
It isn’t exactly the same thing, but I think the two overlap. The term started appearing online in 2025 and gained much wider attention during 2026. Social intelligence platform Pulsar recorded a huge increase in online conversation around it between July 2025 and April 2026.
Source: British Vogue, Whimsymaxxing Is Menswear’s Latest Internet-Fuelled Trend, 2026.
Where chaotic customisation describes a lot of the doing, whimsymaxxing feels more like the mood. There’s colour, nostalgia, craft, personality, play and a willingness to be a little bit silly.
After years of quiet luxury, beige minimalism, carefully curated aesthetics and an online culture that seems determined to optimise every part of our lives, I can see the appeal.
Which brings me back to the question I started with. Why now?
Maybe we need a bit of silly
I’m not going to claim that difficult economic times make people reach for a Bedazzler, but I do think the context around a trend matters.
In August 2026, 89% of adults surveyed in Great Britain said the cost of living was an important issue and 70% said the economy was. Around six in ten said they were worried about rising living costs, while 59% reported spending less on non-essentials because of cost-of-living increases.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain, August 2026.
Then there’s everything else competing for our attention, from political uncertainty and conflict to climate anxiety and an apparently bottomless supply of bad news available on the phone in our hand.
I don’t think a colourful bag charm or a gem-covered tooth is a response to all of that in any neat, measurable way. But perhaps it isn’t surprising that play feels appealing when so much else feels serious.
There’s nostalgia in it too. A Bedazzler, friendship bracelet or pile of colourful beads can take you straight back to making things as a child. The current interest in crafts, analogue hobbies and older technology seems to sit somewhere alongside that desire to step away, even briefly, from perfectly optimised digital life.
There’s a financial element worth considering as well. Changing something doesn’t necessarily mean replacing it. You might not buy a whole new wardrobe, but you can change something you already own. An old jacket can take a brooch, a bag can take a charm, trainers can get new laces and a second-hand top can get covered in gems and taken to Pride.
That feels very different from buying a completely new outfit every time an aesthetic changes.
There’s some interesting research around this broader behaviour too. A study looking at UK luxury consumers during the 2022 to 2024 economic downturn found themes including escapism, wellbeing, durability and responsible consumption. One of its conclusions was that brands should think about “meaning” and “doing” rather than simply owning.
Source: Northumbria University research, The Magic Lipstick: Luxury Values in an Economic Downturn.
That idea really stuck with me, because “doing” is where this starts becoming particularly interesting.
There is, of course, a catch
The internet is very good at turning individuality into something surprisingly uniform.
Someone adds old charms to a bag, covers a jacket in badges or decorates something they already own. People like it, it gets shared, millions of people see it, brands notice, retailers notice, and suddenly you can buy a multipack of mass-produced individuality.
I say that with full awareness that there are currently boxes of gems in my own house. I’m certainly not approaching this from a rhinestone-free moral high ground.
But I do think the contradiction is worth talking about. If we’re all buying the same things because the same algorithm told us they represent individuality, how individual are they?
There’s also a sustainability question that becomes difficult to ignore when the trend moves from decorating something you already own to buying piles of short-lived plastic accessories, or, as I’ve spotted on my own feed, covering single-use cups and other disposable objects in rhinestones. At that point, “but it’s whimsical” probably isn’t much of an environmental defence.
Vogue Business has picked up on the same tension around chaotic customisation. Something rooted in DIY creativity and individuality can very quickly be commercialised into mass consumption of ready-made accessories.
Source: Vogue Business, Gen Zs want chaotic customisation. How can brands tap in?
For me, the more interesting side of this trend is almost the opposite. An old badge you’ve kept for years, a brooch inherited from someone, a charm picked up while travelling, a patch covering a hole, something swapped with a friend or a second-hand piece you’ve altered yourself all carry something beyond the trend itself.
That’s still decoration, but it has a completely different kind of value. Perhaps the most interesting version of personalisation isn’t buying more things to decorate, but finding more reasons to keep, change and enjoy the things we already have.
From something we buy to something we do
From a retail, hospitality and placemaking point of view, there’s a real opportunity here. People aren’t only buying customised products, the customisation itself is becoming the experience.
Earlier this year, an arts, crafts and bedazzling social at Exhibit Balham in London sold out. Guests could bring along everything from skincare and perfume to phone chargers to bedazzle, while having food and drinks and meeting other people.
More recently, I spotted Charmable’s Bedazzle Experience at The Midland in Marple Bridge. For £20, guests get 90 minutes to bedazzle a pot of Vaseline and decorate their own cup, with a drink included. Something that could have stayed as a beauty or TikTok trend has made its way into a hospitality venue and become an actual activity.
And it goes much wider than gems. Brands are experimenting with live personalisation, embroidery, repairs, artist collaborations and upcycling. Coach has used London pop-ups for customisation, monogramming and workshops, while Vogue Business has highlighted brands including Adidas, Coach and Asics using live customisation and artist partnerships as chaotic customisation has grown.
Source: Vogue Business, Gen Zs want ‘chaotic customisation’ in 2025. How can brands tap in?
This opens up so many possibilities for brands and places. Bring-your-own-item workshops, patch and repair stations, charm swaps, badge making, design-your-own rosettes, embroidery, using deadstock or offcuts, or bringing artists and makers into a space as part of a launch or pop-up. It doesn’t need to be a huge activation either. Something relatively simple can give people a reason to visit, spend time somewhere, meet people and potentially eat, drink or shop while they’re there.
And I think there’s a much bigger opportunity in that than just making a rhinestone version of whatever you already sell. How can you let people take part?
The opportunity isn’t only in selling something personalised. It could be in giving someone the chance to make it personal themselves.
So, are we really decorating everything?
Pretty much. But after disappearing down this particular rabbit hole, I don’t think the gems themselves are actually the most interesting part.
An ancient Egyptian amulet, a handmade punk badge, a 90s Bedazzler, a rhinestone-covered Y2K phone, a Jibbitz-covered Croc and a 2026 charm-heavy bag obviously aren’t one continuous fashion trend, and I don’t want to pretend that they are. What connects them for me is something much more human. We have always found ways to use the things we wear, carry and surround ourselves with to communicate something about ourselves, whether that’s our tastes, interests, memories, beliefs, communities or simply our mood.
What changes is the language we use to do it, and right now that language happens to involve a lot of gems, bows, badges, charms, brooches, beads and rosettes.
What I find particularly interesting about this version is how many contradictions sit inside it. Personalisation can be intensely individual, while the trend itself is being spread by algorithms to millions of people. It can encourage us to keep, repair and rework what we already own, or give us another reason to buy more. It can help us stand out and, just like those punk badges, help us find the people we want to fit in with.
Then there’s the shift from product to experience. When people want to make, change and personalise things themselves, the opportunity for brands and places becomes much bigger than producing the next viral charm or sticking rhinestones on something. It becomes about giving people the chance to participate, whether that’s making, repairing, swapping, collecting, learning or simply spending time doing something together.
The individual microtrends will change. Gems will disappear again, bows will be declared over and badges will inevitably go out and come back in. But our desire to make things feel like ours seems much harder to shake.
Maybe that’s the bit worth paying attention to.
Thousands of years after we first started decorating ourselves, we’re still at it. We’ve just found a lot more things to stick gems to.
Spotted something?
If you’ve spotted something you think I’d love, want to talk about gem-covered dogs, or you’re now seriously considering a bedazzling workshop, I’d love to hear from you.
And if you’re a brand, venue or place wondering how an idea like this could become a pop-up, workshop, activation or experience of your own, get in touch with Lo Kehoe Studio.
I promise the gems are optional. ✨
