Every diamond shape explained: proportions, character and how each cut handles light.
Any diamond which is not round brilliant is consider as fancy shape diamond. Princess, pear, emerald & oval shape are some of the most popular fancy shape diamonds. Fish shape & Buddha shape diamonds are something unusual and rare.
21 guides, free to read
The asscher cut diamond is one of the most distinctive and historically significant shapes in all of fine jewelry, a true Art Deco icon that is very much back in style. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and Graduate Diamonds (GIA), is blunt about asschers: the step facets hide nothing.
But here is the thing most buyers do not find out until it is too late: not all cushion cuts are the same. There are two distinctly different types, and they look nothing alike in person. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and a second-generation diamantaire trained at the GIA and De Beers Institute, works with cushion cut diamonds every day, especially in the context of fancy color diamonds, where the cushion cut is the most preferred shape in the world.
With its long rectangular outline, cropped corners, and rows of parallel step facets, it creates an effect unlike any other diamond on the market. Harsh Shah, Director of PASAVAJA Gems, Graduate Diamonds (GIA), with deep expertise in diamond shapes and grading, calls the emerald cut "the most honest of all the cuts, it shows you exactly what a diamond is, with nowhere to hide." That honesty is both its greatest appeal and the reason why buying one demands careful expert guidance.
If you have been researching three-stone rings or looking for the perfect complement to a center diamond, the half moon shape deserves a very close look. At PASAVAJA, Harsh Shah, Director and Graduate Diamonds (GIA), sources half moons in matched pairs, and he will tell you that the straight edge is where most of them fail: cut a fraction off square and the stone will never sit flush against a center diamond.
It is a statement. The heart cut is one of the most emotionally resonant diamond shapes in the world, and also one of the most technically demanding to buy well. Get it right, and it is breathtaking. Get it wrong, and the shape simply does not read the way you imagined.
When most people picture a diamond, they picture a round brilliant or maybe an oval. A hexagon diamond stops that assumption entirely. Six equal sides, a clean geometric silhouette, and an understated confidence that very few shapes can replicate. If you have been drawn to it, you already have strong instincts.
Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and a second-generation diamantaire with credentials from GIA, De Beers Institute, and Rapaport Academy, has sourced and studied specialty-cut diamonds that most dealers have never even handled. Kite cuts are among his favorite geometric shapes precisely because they are so uncommon, and so visually commanding.
This is a shape with real personality, two pointed ends, a dramatic elongated outline, and a face-up size that outperforms almost every other shape at the same carat weight. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and a GIA-credentialed diamantaire with deep expertise in antique shapes and rare diamond cuts, has spent years sourcing and evaluating marquise diamonds for clients around the world.
If you have ever looked at an oval diamond and a marquise side by side and thought, "I wish there was something in between": there is. It is called the moval diamond, and it is one of the most interesting, least understood shapes in the natural diamond world today. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems and a GIA and De Beers Institute-trained diamantaire with deep expertise in rare and specialty diamond shapes, considers the moval one of the most rewarding shapes to source and study, precisely because so few people know how to talk about it properly.
If you have ever looked at a diamond from the Victorian or Edwardian era and felt that something about it was different, warmer, softer, more romantic, you were not imagining it. You were looking at an old European cut diamond. Harsh Shah, who leads diamond sourcing and education at PASAVAJA Gems LLP, has a particular passion for antique cuts.
Every now and then, a diamond walks into a conversation that stops experts cold. For Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and one of the most respected voices on antique and rare diamond shapes in the trade today, the old mine cut diamond is exactly that kind of stone.
If you are considering an oval for an engagement ring or as a statement loose stone, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know before you buy. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and Graduate Diamonds (GIA), has sourced ovals for two decades. His test is simple and unforgiving: turn the stone under a single light and watch the bow-tie.
Its distinctive teardrop silhouette combines the brilliance of a round brilliant at the rounded base with the drama of a pointed tip, giving you a shape that genuinely looks like nothing else on the hand. If you are considering a pear shaped diamond for an engagement ring, pendant, or one-of-a-kind piece, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know before you buy.
This is one of the rarest and most misunderstood diamond cuts in the world, and it is the kind of stone Harsh Shah at PASAVAJA genuinely gets excited about. Harsh's expertise in antique and heritage diamond cuts means he can identify, date, and evaluate a portrait cut diamond in ways that few people anywhere in the trade can.
Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP, Graduate Diamonds (GIA), with over two decades in the natural diamond trade, will be the first to tell you that the princess cut is one of the most technically interesting shapes on the market today. It delivers brilliant sparkle in a square outline, and it does something no other square diamond can quite replicate.
If you have been shopping for a square or rectangular diamond with serious sparkle, and especially if colored diamonds are on your radar, understanding the radiant cut diamond should be your first step. Harsh Shah, who leads diamond sourcing at PASAVAJA and whose expertise in fancy color diamond grading has directly contributed to GIA certificate revisions, considers the radiant cut one of his most recommended shapes for buyers who want maximum visual impact from a colored stone.
If you have been drawn to their soft, glowing look and wondered what makes them so different from a modern brilliant, you are asking exactly the right question. At PASAVAJA, Harsh Shah has sourced and evaluated rose cut diamonds for years and understands their distinctive character in a way that is rare in today's market, including the fascinating Indian and Dutch trade history that gave this cut its start centuries ago.
It is not tradition for its own sake: it is mathematics meeting beauty in a way no other shape has managed to replicate. Harsh Shah, Director of PASAVAJA, Graduate Diamonds (GIA), with deep expertise in diamond sourcing and evaluation, puts it plainly: the round brilliant is not the most popular diamond by accident.
It is one of those shapes that stops you. Harsh Shah, the colored diamond and specialty shape specialist at PASAVAJA, often describes the shield as a diamond for buyers who want geometry to do the talking. This guide covers everything: what the shield cut actually is, how many sides it has, where it fits in a setting, and why collectors and bespoke jewelry designers keep coming back to it.
They are one of the most enduring design choices in fine jewelry, and one of the most misunderstood. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and Graduate Diamonds (GIA), sources tapered baguettes as matched pairs rather than singly, which is the part most buyers never see. Two baguettes cut a fraction apart in length or taper will never sit symmetrically beside a center stone, and no setter can correct it afterwards.
If you have spent any time exploring diamond shapes, you have probably focused on the big names, round brilliants, ovals, cushions. But the trillion cut diamond deserves your attention, especially if you are designing a three-stone ring or looking for a bold, geometric center stone that genuinely stands out. Harsh Shah, Director at PASAVAJA Gems LLP and Graduate Diamonds (GIA), judges a trillion on how evenly it carries light to its three corners.
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