Pin Ultimate

When mass-market style mavens plugged in their glue guns and proclaimed that ordinary bulletin boards could be transformed into decorative home accessories, corkboard covered with chintz and trimmed with grosgrain ribbons began appearing on kitchen and home-office walls across America (and for all we know, the world).

And so, it was only a matter of time before the lowly thumbtack would get a make-over.

For the true design enthusiast, it would appear, no detail is ever too small.

Yesterday’s thumbtacks, sold in packages of 50 at the local drugstore, have given way to high-fashion pushpins sold in museum stores and specialty gift shops.

No longer the simple utilitarian instrument used to affix the note reminding Mom and Dad that little Billy needs a ride home from school, these thumbtacks make a statement.

“Everything is designed now,” said Annie Reiniger, a buyer for the Museum of Contemporary Art gift store. “Functional objects have been rethought. The most functional, even the pushpin, is now thought of in aesthetic terms.”

Robinwood, a Boston-based giftware company, manufactures 15 different sets or themes of pushpins. A gardening collection contains tiny watering cans and trowels, a golf set contains a club and a ball on a tee. And each collection, whether it is bugs, shoes or musical instruments, comes packaged in a round metal tin that may prove as functional as its contents.

These collections of pushpins are part of the growing market for what Reiniger terms “cultural produce,” the little things we love to buy to accessorize our homes, to accentuate our individual sense of style.

“People are obsessed with home decorating, and I think this is because the baby boomers of the ‘80s are now wanting to nest, to stay at home. And they want to create these unusual, comfortable, rich home environments for their families that express their own individuality,” says Reiniger.

There’s also an appealing whimsy about the new pushpins.

“People are tired of the ordinary. They are tired of magnets,” said Lorie Westmoreland of Leonora Moss, a custom floral and gift boutique in Sierra Madre. Leonora Moss carries a collection of pushpins by Rhode Island craftsman Jim Clift. Eight butterfly pushpins cost $13.50. Other pushpins can cost as much as $20 for a set of six.

“We may spend our money on silly things,” said Westmoreland, “but they do make a great stocking stuffer.”