In the context of diamonds, shape refers to the basic outline or form of a polished diamond, which is distinct from its cut (which pertains to the diamond’s facets, proportions, and overall craftsmanship). The shape is the fundamental, overall geometry of the diamond, determining its appearance and how it interacts with light. The shape of a diamond is typically selected based on personal preference, aesthetic taste, and desired brilliance, as different shapes have different effects on the way a diamond reflects light and sparkles.

Types of Diamond Shapes
There are several common diamond shapes, each with unique characteristics, and they vary in terms of their appearance, the way they reflect light, and their overall style. Below are some of the most popular diamond shapes:

Round:

The round shape is the most popular and traditional diamond shape, known for its exceptional brilliance and sparkle. It has a circular outline and is cut with 57 or 58 facets, including the table, crown, pavilion, and girdle. This shape maximises light reflection, making it the most sought-after shape for engagement rings and other jewellery.
The round shape is also known as the round brilliant cut, which is designed to achieve the highest level of brilliance and scintillation, making it the benchmark for diamond cutting.
Princess:

The princess shape is a square or rectangular diamond with pointed corners. It is the second most popular diamond shape after the round shape and is prized for its sharp, modern appearance. Princess cut diamonds have a brilliant faceting style, offering excellent sparkle. This shape is often selected for engagement rings and other jewellery due to its versatile and elegant appearance.
This shape is known for its clean lines, and it’s often favoured by those who want the brilliance of a round diamond but prefer a more angular look.
Emerald:

The emerald shape is a rectangular diamond with cut corners and a step-cut faceting style. Unlike the brilliant cuts, emerald cut diamonds are more about clarity and the stone’s internal characteristics, showcasing the diamond’s clarity through large, open facets.
The emerald shape is known for its elegance, producing a sleek and sophisticated look. It is particularly suited for those who appreciate a vintage style or want a more subtle, understated sparkle compared to the brilliance of other cuts.
Cushion:

The cushion shape is a square or rectangular diamond with rounded corners, giving it a pillow-like appearance. This shape combines features of both the round brilliant and emerald cut, offering a balance of brilliance and clarity.
The cushion shape has a romantic, vintage appeal and is known for its soft, gentle curves. This shape has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially in antique-style jewellery.
Oval:

The oval shape is an elongated round diamond, offering the same brilliance as a round diamond but with an elongated, oval outline. This shape creates the illusion of a larger stone due to its elongated shape and is often chosen for its ability to make fingers appear more slender.
Oval diamonds are known for their classic elegance and sparkling appearance. The elongated form gives a sense of modernity, and it works well in many jewellery settings, particularly for engagement rings.
Marquise:

The marquise shape is a football-like or boat-shaped diamond, with pointed ends and a long, elongated outline. This shape is known for creating the illusion of length and size, making it appear larger than other shapes of the same carat weight.
Marquise diamonds are ideal for creating a bold, dramatic look and are often used in statement pieces or vintage-inspired designs.
Pear:

The pear shape is a combination of round and marquise cuts, with one pointed end and one rounded end, resembling a teardrop. This shape has a soft, elegant look and is often seen in pendants, earrings, and engagement rings.
The pear shape is known for its flattering effect on the hand or neck, as its elongated shape can make the fingers or neckline appear more slender. It also offers a unique balance of brilliance and elegance.
Asscher:

The asscher shape is a square version of the emerald cut, with cut corners and a distinctive step-cut faceting. This shape has a vintage appeal, often associated with the early 20th century and the art deco period.
The asscher shape is known for its regal, sophisticated look and clarity, emphasising the diamond’s natural beauty and internal characteristics. It’s a great choice for those who enjoy vintage or retro styles.
Radiant:

The radiant shape is a square or rectangular diamond with cut corners, combining the brilliance of a round cut with the elegance of an emerald cut. The facets of a radiant diamond are typically more brilliant, giving the stone a striking sparkle while retaining its structured outline.
Radiant diamonds are popular for their modern appeal and versatility, working well in many types of jewellery, from engagement rings to statement necklaces.
Heart:

The heart shape is a romantic, symbolic diamond shape, resembling a heart. It’s a modified brilliant cut, and it’s often selected for engagement rings and valentine’s jewellery due to its emotional significance.
Heart-shaped diamonds combine both brilliance and emotional appeal, and they are often used in pendants, rings, and earrings for special occasions.
Factors Influencing Diamond Shape Selection
When choosing a diamond shape, several factors should be considered:

Personal Taste: The aesthetic preference of the buyer plays a crucial role in selecting the shape. Some may prefer the classic brilliance of the round shape, while others may gravitate towards the elegance of the emerald or the romance of the heart.

Brilliance: Different shapes have varying levels of brilliance. Round diamonds generally offer the highest level of brilliance, while step-cut diamonds (like emerald and asscher) may offer less sparkle but more emphasis on clarity.

Finger Shape and Size: Some diamond shapes, like the oval and marquise, can make fingers appear longer and slender, while other shapes, like cushion or round, may have a more balanced look.

Diamond Setting: The shape of the diamond affects the type of setting it can be used with. Round diamonds fit most settings, but fancy-shaped diamonds, like pear or heart, may require more custom settings to highlight their unique outlines.

Size Appearance: Some diamond shapes, like marquise and pear, can create the illusion of a larger diamond, which may be preferred for those looking for a bigger appearance without increasing carat weight.

The shape of a diamond is a fundamental factor in its overall appearance and appeal. Each shape offers its own unique style, brilliance, and aesthetic qualities, allowing buyers to select the diamond that best reflects their personal tastes, lifestyle, and the intended jewellery setting. Whether opting for the timeless round or the elegant emerald, each shape offers something special, making it an essential element in choosing the perfect diamond.

Rare and Unusual Diamond Shapes You Should Know About
Round brilliants get most of the attention, but the world of diamond cutting goes far beyond the shapes you see in every jewellery counter. If you’re drawn to something with more character, there’s a whole category of rare cuts worth exploring from art deco holdovers to modern inventions with only a handful of master cutters on earth.

Whether you’re building a custom engagement ring or just love diamonds as an art form, here’s a guide to some of the most distinctive shapes out there.

Baguette Cut
The baguette takes its name from the French word for a long, slender loaf of bread an apt description for this elongated rectangular step-cut. With wide, flat facets arranged in parallel rows (usually 14 in total), baguettes have a clean, architectural look that defined much of art deco jewellery design.

People often mix them up with emerald cuts, but the difference comes down to the corners: emerald cuts have trimmed corners, while baguettes keep sharp, angled ones, giving them a true rectangle. Baguettes also have fewer facets than brilliant cuts, which mutes their sparkle but that same simplicity keeps them relatively affordable, making them a popular choice as side stones.

Tapered Baguette
Picture a baguette with its two long edges angled inward, narrowing toward one end into a trapezoid that’s the tapered baguette. Its slim, directional shape makes it a natural fit as an accent stone, framing a larger centre diamond of almost any shape, including round, oval, or princess cuts.

Tapered baguettes are typically set in mirrored pairs on either side of a centre stone, though some designs cluster several together for a more sculptural effect.

Half Moon
A half-moon diamond is essentially half of an oval one edge cut straight, the other left curved, like a square with one rounded side. The cut first appeared in the 1920s as a step-cut before evolving into the brilliant-faceted version most common today.

Also called demilune diamonds, half-moons are almost always sold in pairs and used to flank a centre stone. They’re a favourite in three-stone engagement rings and pair well with nearly any centre shape.

Trapezoid
The trapezoid sometimes called a trapeze cut has two parallel sides and two sides that angle inward. It comes in both brilliant and step-cut versions (the step-cut resembling a scaled-down emerald cut), and the distinction matters if you’re shopping for matched side stones.

Because their shape adapts so well to gaps around a centre stone, trapezoids are a go-to for custom side-stone settings, and they show up frequently in both engagement rings and pendant designs.

Carré Cut
A Carré cut diamond is a square, step-faceted stone with chamfered (trimmed) corners, cut in a precise stairstep pattern. Because the faceting demands such exacting symmetry, only the highest-quality rough is suitable for this cut.

Popularised in antique jewellery, Carré cuts tend to show more fire than sparkle, and their transparency makes inclusions more visible meaning the rough used is often smaller and more varied in colour. It’s a more understated, vintage-leaning alternative to a brilliant cut. See our guide to step-cut diamonds for more on this family of shapes.

French Cut
The closest modern equivalent to the French cut is the princess cut. This square or rectangular shape is recognisable by the pattern its crown facets form on the table, and it suits the geometric lines of art deco design with a softer, more vintage light return.

French cuts date back to the 1400s and were especially favoured by French royalty and nobility in the 1600s. The style has seen renewed interest recently, both as a centre stone in engagement rings and in eternity bands, and its square-to-rectangular profile pairs well with emeralds and sapphires as well as diamonds.

Bullet Cut
True to its name, a bullet-cut diamond looks like a rectangle with one end tapered to a point three straight sides and one angled tip. These are typically set in pairs, cut in either step or brilliant style, to flank a larger centre stone.

A step-cut bullet complements emerald-cut centre stones, while a brilliant-cut bullet pairs better with round centre stones. Bullet cuts are rarely the star of a ring, but their angled point makes them effective as directional accent stones, and in the right setting they can be featured more prominently as part of a matched cluster.

Asprey Cut
Created by renowned cutter Gabi Tolkowsky, the Asprey cut is an irregular shape that resembles a cushion cut at first glance but is cut with entirely different proportions softer, rounder edges and a distinctive 61-facet arrangement that produces unusually strong light reflection.

Asprey cuts are cut entirely by hand, and only rough that meets strict standards (D–G colour, Flawless to VS2 clarity, roughly 0.5 to 3+ carats) qualifies which is part of why the cut remains so rare.

Eighty-Eight Cut
The Eighty-Eight cut is an octagonal shape built around the number 8, considered auspicious in Chinese culture as a symbol of prosperity and fortune. Created by Finesse Diamonds, it features 88 facets and a distinctive shine that stands apart from a conventional round brilliant, even in low light.

Royal Asscher Cut
The Royal Asscher is a refinement of the original Asscher cut, first designed by Joseph Asscher in 1902. His descendants, Edward and Joop Asscher, revived and modernised the design in 1999, adding 16 facets to the original 58, along with an extra facet layer, a taller crown, and a narrower profile all of which increase brilliance and clarity compared to the original.

It’s an especially rare cut: reportedly only around 75 cutters worldwide are trained to produce it, so you won’t find it at a typical jeweller. Read more in our step-cut diamonds guide.

Ashoka Cut
A variation on the cushion cut, the Ashoka replaces the traditional square outline with a longer, more rounded rectangle. It was designed in 1999 by the William Goldberg Diamond Corporation and named for its connection to the historic Golconda mines the Ashoka cut has held trademark protection since 2000.

To qualify as an Ashoka, a diamond needs 62 facets, which gives the finished stone the appearance of being larger than its actual carat weight. The rough required is longer and larger than for most cuts, and the cutting process itself can take up to six months fewer than 10% of rough diamonds are even suitable candidates.

Jubilee Cut
The Jubilee cut is an antique style typically reserved for larger diamonds, designed to maximise brilliance and fire. It’s defined by the absence of a flat table and eight crown facets, for 88 facets in total. The cut was created around the turn of the 20th century in honour of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

Because Jubilee cuts are shallow and lack a culet, they’re capable of a distinctive, star-like sparkle one reason they remain so rare today.

Crisscut
Think of the Crisscut as the emerald cut’s flashier cousin a step-cut with dramatically more facets and, as a result, more fire. It was created in 1998 by Christopher Slowinski, who developed the technique while attempting to refine the emerald cut; the resulting crisscrossing facet pattern gave the cut its name.

Where a standard emerald cut has 44 facets, a Crisscut has 77 and the technique can be applied to emerald, cushion, Asscher, and even round diamonds.

Lily Cut
One of the more whimsical rare cuts, the Lily is shaped like a four-petal flower or clover. It was invented in 2007 by Israeli jeweller Lili Diamonds, and a similar motif has since been used by Louis Vuitton, helping cement its status as a recognisable design.

With around 65 facets, the Lily cut can be finished with either rounded or more pointed petals. It’s also one of the more wasteful cuts to produce the process can sacrifice 25–50% of the rough stone’s original weight.

PrincessPlus Cut
The PrincessPlus is an elevated version of the standard princess cut, introduced in 2000 by EFD, the company behind the original princess cut. Where a standard princess cut has roughly 58–68 facets, the PrincessPlus can have 100–115, producing noticeably more brilliance.

Buyers typically receive a “Light Return Analysis” certificate confirming the sparkle is the result of the additional faceting rather than the stone’s inherent qualities.

Bead Cut
Not an officially certified cut, but distinctive nonetheless bead-cut diamonds are shaped into spheres, like a miniature disco ball, so they can be strung into a necklace or bracelet. They’re typically cut from round diamonds, have no table or culet, and come in a range of sizes.

The drill hole through the centre is the most important detail to check when buying: too large a hole and the stone loses much of its sparkle.

Trillion Cut
Also known as a trilliant or Trillian cut, this triangular shape can have either gently curved sides (trillion) or straight ones (trilliant). Because of the way the triangular outline plays with light, these diamonds often look larger and brighter than round diamonds of the same carat weight.

They’re also more forgiving on the four Cs cut, clarity, colour, and carat making them a practical option if you want a distinctive stone without obsessing over grading reports. Trillion-cut engagement rings do exist, but they take some searching to find. Browse our engagement ring collection for current options.

Star-Shaped Diamond
A true star-shaped diamond takes exceptional skill to produce a jeweller has to carefully align each point and facet so the finished stone genuinely reads as a five-pointed star. It’s a natural choice for anyone wanting something built specifically for a milestone occasion.

Star diamonds can stand alone as a centre stone or be surrounded by smaller accents, which makes the star appear almost like a cluster in the sky.

Hexagon Cut
A hexagonal diamond brings clean geometric lines to a ring while still nodding to more classic proportions. It’s available in both wider and narrower profiles depending on the look you’re after, and works well as a bold, modern centre stone.

One practical note: the sharper corners on a hexagon cut can catch more easily on clothing and fabric than rounded shapes, so it may need a bit more care in daily wear. Given how uncommon the cut already is, sourcing one can take some patience.