How does cut affect fancy shaped diamonds?
What about fancy cut diamonds like marquise, pear, oval, heart, emerald, princess, radiant, and others? How can a consumer know a fancy-cut diamond is well cut? Due to the symmetry of round brilliant-cut diamonds, it is much easier to formulate proportion criteria and strike an optimum balance between brilliance and dispersion. Although EGL USA supplies extensive proportion information on its diamond certificates for fancy-cut diamonds, there is currently no universal set of standards constituting ideal proportions for these shapes. With that said, here are some general guidelines: • The degree of brilliance in a fancy shape can be one way to tell whether it is cut within acceptable proportions or not. A fancy-cut diamond should be exciting to look at and should dance in the light — it shouldn’t suffer from too much “light leakage” through the pavilion. • A phenomenon called the “bowtie” effect – an obvious diminished area of brilliance appearing like a bowtie – occurs in certain fanc
