Radiant Cut Diamonds

The phrase “radiant diamonds” may seem like a trite and shopword cliché – but in fact, it refers to particular kinds of diamond shapes, or cuts. In fact, when it comes to bringing out the beauty of diamonds, the cut is everything. Despite their rarity and hardness, improperly cut diamonds are worthless except perhaps for industrial applications. Radiant cut diamonds are quite versatile as diamond shapes go, lending themselves to a variety of attractive settings.

A Brief History of Radiant Cut Diamonds

In their natural state, diamonds aren’t particularly interesting, nor even attractive. Were you to run across a rough diamond when digging in the garden, you’d probably think it was a dirty piece of ice – except of course that it wouldn’t be cold or wet to the touch.

The bottom line is that it takes a great deal of polishing to make a diamond even remotely appealing, and that’s only if its in its normal octagonal shape. In fact, this is all that could be done with diamonds up until about 650 years ago. It wasn’t until then that people had learned how to make diamond shapes by cutting off corners and creating facets.

Even then, it really wasn’t until the early 1900s that technology allowed diamond cutters to create the brilliant cuts with which we are familiar today.

All About Diamond Shapes

Brilliant round cuts are but one of many diamond shapes. Other categories include fancy cuts, modified brilliants, step cuts and mixed cuts. Radiant diamonds fall into this last category.

In order to understand this, it helps to be aware that radiant diamonds combine the best features of two very different cuts. Brilliant cuts show a gemstone’s fire and brilliance; these are diamonds that sparkle under the light. Step cuts emphasize the diamond’s clarity. These diamonds have wide, flat surfaces called tables; one can peer deep into the very depths of the stone. They are also more economical; step-cut diamonds retain more of their carat weight.

Mixed cuts are among the most recent of diamond cuts, having been around only for the past half century or so.

Mixed cuts like radiant diamonds are more rectangular in shape, but are faceted around the girdle, or circumference. It is the facets which sparkle, while the steps preserves the carat weight of the gem. Radiant diamonds have a total of 70 facets, and are nearly square in shape. They display well in a wide variety of settings.