Cutting helps humanity to the beauty of precious stones. Color, transparency and carats, the rest of the 4 C jewelry grade, come more from nature. What we call a cut not only determines how a finished piece of jewelry is formed, but also its shape. Although pollen and other standard shapes have long dominated the market, fancy jewelry cuts offer many alternatives.
What are the standard forms of jewelry?
For face jewelry, standard shapes include round, square and rectangular. Round and oval are standard for taxi gems.
Pollen has dominated the gemstone market since the 1880s, when Tiffany & Co. created the six-pronged space often seen in solo rings today.
What are fancy jewelry cuts?
Despite the dominance of pollen, the fancy cuts of jewelry have retained themselves. Customers looking for something unique, iconic or old-fashioned can turn to these different cuts.
For veneered jewels, the fancy cut of any cut is non-round. This category includes ovals, pears, hearts and other slices.
Fancy jewels in the shape of a cabin are anything but round or oval. They include rectangles, squares, crosses, teardrops and free shapes.
Cushion cutting
The cushion cut, also called the pillow cut, is essentially a square with rounded corners and sides, like the cushions of a sofa.
Cushion cutting has large faces. This means that despite being brilliant, it returns less light than round diamonds and has a more blocked light return pattern. While this quality makes the cushions feel old-fashioned, it leaves them with unforgivable flaws. Through these large faces that act as a window to the stone, any attachment will be clearly visible. White diamonds will also show any color. But one of the advantages of the cushion is that it has more fire than other cuts, including round ones.
While most cushions are square, some are rectangular. The ideal ratio for rectangular cushions varies from 1.15 to 1.20. A rectangular cushion should be long enough to be clearly visible from the square, but not too narrow and long.
