Collection: Emerald Cut Diamonds

An emerald cut is a rectangular step cut. Instead of the many small triangular and kite facets of a brilliant, it has long parallel facets cut in tiers down the crown and pavilion, like descending steps, with the corners cut off. It is a cut that prizes clarity and proportion over sparkle, and it is the most architectural of the shapes.

It is the signature of the emerald cut. Those long parallel steps reflect one another, so instead of the fragmented glitter of a brilliant you get broad flashes of white and dark moving across the stone as it tilts — a receding, mirrored corridor of light.

It is a slower, more deliberate kind of sparkle, and it is exactly what people choose this shape for. If you want fire and scintillation, an emerald cut is not the shape. If you want depth and restraint, nothing else does it.

They return less light overall, yes — the step faceting is not designed to maximise brilliance. But the trade is a cleaner, more elegant look and much more visible depth into the stone. The flash pattern is bolder and less busy. It is a different aesthetic rather than a lesser one, and it is why emerald cuts read as understated even at larger sizes.

This is the one place emerald cuts are genuinely demanding. Those open, unbroken facets give you a clear window straight into the stone, so there is nothing to disguise an inclusion the way brilliant faceting does. VS2 or better is the safe range.

That said, plenty of SI stones are perfectly beautiful — but only if the inclusion sits somewhere it does not interfere. An SI1 emerald cut must be seen and confirmed eye-clean before you buy it, and a grade on a certificate will never tell you that. We personally sight and carefully select every emerald cut we hold, checking face-up under proper light, because on this shape it matters more than on any other.

Step cuts show body colour more readily than brilliants — the same open facets that reveal inclusions also reveal tint. G or better stays reliably white in platinum or white gold. H can work but wants checking. In yellow or rose gold you have far more freedom, because the metal warms the stone regardless.

Most emerald cuts fall between 1.30 and 1.50, with 1.40 the classic. Below 1.30 it starts to read as square and closer to an Asscher; above 1.50 it becomes long and quite dramatic. Purely taste, and worth seeing two or three side by side.

The full 4Cs — carat, colour and clarity — plus polish and symmetry on the five-tier Excellent to Poor scale. There is no overall cut grade; GIA reserves that for round brilliants.

On a step cut, symmetry carries real weight. The parallel facets have to align precisely or the mirrored effect breaks down and the stone looks muddled rather than crisp.

Because there is no cut grade to fall back on. GIA assigns a formal cut grade only to round brilliants, so on a fancy shape the certificate tells you polish and symmetry and little else about how the stone actually performs. Symmetry becomes the closest thing you have to a proxy.

But there are two kinds, and the certificate only covers one. The graded symmetry measures facet alignment under magnification. What you actually see is outline symmetry — whether the two halves mirror each other. A pear with shoulders of different heights, an oval with one end fuller than the other, a marquise with points that do not line up: none of that necessarily drops the grade, and all of it is obvious once the stone is on your finger.

Asymmetry also affects light. Facets that do not align properly send light out the side instead of back to your eye, which is what causes dead patches and heavy bowties.

So on a fancy shape, look for Very Good or better on the certificate — then look at the stone. The outline either reads as balanced or it does not, and that judgement is one you can make yourself in a few seconds.

Solitaire is where most emerald cuts belong. It is the most elegant and classic setting for the shape, and there is a reason it endures — the emerald cut is all about clean lines and proportion, and a plain band lets that carry the whole ring. Four claws is standard, one at each corner, and because the corners are already cut there is nothing exposed that needs protecting.

Three stone is the emerald cut's other natural home. Tapered baguettes either side are the classic pairing — step cut beside step cut, all straight lines, and the result is quietly architectural. Trapezoids or half-moons give a softer transition. Two smaller emerald cuts flanking a larger one reads as very considered and very Art Deco.

Side stones along the shoulders — particularly baguettes running into the setting — extend the geometry of the stone and make the whole ring read as one line.

Halo frames the stone with a surround of smaller rounds and adds visible size, the scattered sparkle of the rounds contrasting with the long clean facets of the centre stone.

East-west is worth seeing. Turned across the finger, an emerald cut becomes distinctly modern, and the long axis covers more of the band.

All made to order in our own workshop, built around your stone.

Art Deco ran from roughly 1920 to 1935, and the jewellery of that period has a distinct logic: geometry over ornament, symmetry, strong lines, contrast. The diamond shapes that suit it are the ones cut in that era or designed on the same principles.

Asscher and emerald cuts are the definitive Art Deco stones. Both are step cuts with clean straight facets, and both were at their most popular precisely when the style was. Nothing else sits so naturally in a Deco setting.

Baguettes and tapered baguettes are the period's signature side stone. Long, rectangular, step cut — they were used everywhere in the 1920s and 30s and they are what gives a Deco ring its architectural line.

Old cut diamonds — old European and old mine cuts — bring genuine period character. They were the stones actually being set at the time, and their softer, warmer light is quite different from a modern brilliant.

Trilliants, half-moons, trapezoids and calibré-cut stones were used to build the geometric patterns the style is known for, fitted precisely against the centre stone rather than simply flanking it.

Cushions and round brilliants work too, particularly in a stepped or geometric setting, though they read as less period-specific.

What matters as much as the stones is how they are set — clean lines, symmetry, milgrain edges, a raised geometric gallery, and often a contrast of white metal against dark accents. Original Deco pieces were made in platinum, and platinum still suits the style best.

This is work we do a great deal of, either as a new piece designed in the period style or as a remodel of an inherited ring. All made to order in our own workshop.

Roughly 7.0 x 5.0mm, against about 6.4mm across for a round of the same weight. Emerald cuts spread well and face up larger than their carat suggests.

Because our images and videos are taken at high magnification — far closer than any human eye gets to a diamond, and far closer than the standard the stone was graded to.

Clarity grading is done under 10x magnification. That is the international standard: a grader with a 10x loupe decides whether an inclusion is there and how it affects the grade. Online photography routinely runs at twenty, thirty times life size or more, so you are seeing the stone at several times the magnification GIA used to grade it. An inclusion that fills your screen may be something the grader needed a loupe to find at all.

Colour matters too. A white or transparent inclusion — a feather, a cloud, a crystal without body colour — is far harder to see than a dark carbon spot of the same size, because there is little contrast against the diamond around it. Two stones can carry the same grade and look entirely different in the hand for that reason alone.

We photograph at high magnification deliberately. We would rather show you everything than shoot a diamond flatteringly and have you surprised later. But an inclusion that looks obvious on screen is very often invisible in the hand, at arm's length, on a moving finger, in ordinary light.

The grade tells you what is there. The magnification tells you where. Neither tells you whether you would ever notice it — that is a judgement we make face-up, under proper light, on every stone we hold.

Considerably, and it is worth knowing before you compare stones in different places.

Jewellery displays are lit to sell. Rows of halogen or bright LED spots directly above the case flood the stone with intense, concentrated light from every angle. That produces maximum sparkle and, at the same time, washes out inclusions — the scintillation is so busy that small imperfections simply disappear into it. A diamond in a well-lit display case is showing you close to the best it will ever look.

Daylight is the opposite. Soft, diffuse, coming from one direction. Sparkle is quieter, and anything inside the stone has nowhere to hide. Diamond grading uses controlled, colour-balanced daylight-equivalent lighting for exactly that reason — it is neutral, and it is reproducible.

Neither light is dishonest. But if you look at a stone under spotlights and then take it outside, you will see a different diamond, and most of a ring's life is spent in ordinary light.

When you view diamonds with us, you see them under professional diamond grading lights — the same neutral, colour-balanced lighting the laboratories use — and in natural daylight. No spotlit display case. If a stone looks right under those conditions, it will look right anywhere.

Always, and we would insist on it.

A single diamond on its own looks excellent. There is nothing to measure it against, so your eye accepts it. Put a second stone beside it and differences appear immediately that you would never have seen alone — one reads slightly warmer, one has more life, one throws broader flashes while the other glitters more finely.

This is how the trade buys, and it is the only reliable way to judge colour in particular. Colour grading is comparative by definition: graders work against a set of masterstones, not from memory. Your eye works the same way. Two stones a grade apart are obvious side by side and almost impossible to separate one at a time.

So we will put several in front of you. Sometimes that means you choose a lower grade than you came in for because you genuinely prefer how it looks, and sometimes it means you spend a little more because you can finally see the difference. Either way you will know why, which is the point.

No. Every diamond we sell is a natural diamond, and we've never dealt in lab-grown, simulants or treated stones.

A lab-grown stone is a manufactured product. It's grown in a reactor over a few weeks, then mass produced in unlimited quantities in any size or grade. That's the fundamental difference: a natural diamond took billions of years to form and exists in finite supply, while a laboratory-grown one is a commodity with no ceiling on production. It shows in the pricing — as capacity has scaled, lab-grown prices have fallen steeply and continue to fall, and there is no established secondary market for them.

What you're buying with a natural diamond is scarcity and origin. Rare, and natural. It's why we've never sold anything else. Read our full comparison of natural and lab-grown diamonds.

Our diamonds are independently certified, most commonly by GIA, with others graded by DCLA or HRD. The certificate is issued by the laboratory, not by us, and it accompanies the stone when it ships.

Yes. We are in Sydney's CBD and we see clients by appointment, so you can view stones side by side and compare them in person before deciding.

Just ask us. Finding a particular stone is a large part of what we do, and there's no obligation when you enquire. We'll do our best to source the finest quality natural diamond for you.

Our list is smaller than you'll see on some sites, and that's deliberate. Every diamond here is one we've looked at properly before listing it. Many diamond websites show tens or hundreds of thousands of stones drawn from shared trade lists — diamonds held elsewhere that the seller hasn't seen and won't see unless you order one. It looks like more choice, but nobody has assessed the individual stone, and two diamonds with the same details on paper can look quite different.

So if what you want isn't here, tell us what you're after and what you'd like to spend. We'll look for it, check anything we find ourselves, and only show you stones we'd be happy to recommend. If we can't find the right thing at your budget, we'll say so and talk through the options — sometimes a small change in colour, clarity or size makes all the difference.

Either way, you'll only ever be offered a diamond that we have complete confidence in recommending to you, and it will not just be based on the cheapest price.

Yes. Most clients select the diamond first and then the setting — either one of our existing designs or a fully custom piece made to your description or an image. Everything is handmade by our own jewellers.

Yes. We have many loyal customers all over Australia, and we're able to consult by phone and share photos and videos whenever possible.

Distance is not the obstacle people expect. We'll guide you through the options and select the finest quality diamonds and gemstones for you, so you can make an informed decision from wherever you are. The same applies to custom made engagement rings and jewellery — we'll talk you through it and keep you across it as it's made.

We deliver fully insured anywhere in Australia — every capital city, and regional and rural addresses just the same.

If you are able to come in, we'd always rather show you the stones in person — and if you're travelling to Sydney, appointments can be arranged on weekends.

Tell us the number you have in mind and what matters most to you, and we will show you the best stones we hold at that level. On an emerald cut we would rather you spent on clarity and proportion than carat. We are a diamond merchant, not a retail jeweller — we do not charge retail prices, and we source natural certified diamonds to suit your budget. Diamond Imports is a foundation member of the Diamond Dealers Club of Australia, and you will deal directly with Daniel throughout.