Documentation
Diamond Cutting Styles & Shapes
How shape and facet pattern change what a diamond does with light.
Diamonds of different shapes differ in beauty and optical performance, and so do diamonds of the same shape with different facet patterns.
The diamonds in this collection have different shapes. They also differ in beauty and optical performance.
Diamonds with the same Cushion girdle shape can have many different facet patterns. These patterns give different performance.
The same is true for all diamond shapes. This collection shows different patterns for Ovals.
Even a simple shape such as the Round is polished in many designs and patterns.
Why this matters
The wide range of designs and patterns in fancy shapes creates differences in performance.
One goal of the Workshop is to explore this range of fancy shapes. It explains an approach to performance grading for diamonds of any shape and pattern. This approach should be available to specialists (gemologists and appraisers) and also to end consumers. See Optical Performance Evaluation.