In our quest for the perfect shaped diamond, I will be giving you the highlights of many shapes! An oval shape gives you that wonderful larger face-up look. Technically it is called an ‘oval modified brilliant’ cut. Oooh you say! I can get the brilliance, scintillation (sparkle!), and fire of a round brilliant but, it faces up a little bigger? Nice! This cut was invented by Lazare Kaplan in the early ‘60s. I’m going to name drop here, he is a cousin to Marcel Tolkowsky, who came up with the mathematical formula for the proportions of the standard round brilliant cut. The oval is cut in the 58 facet brilliant pattern. But, it can be cut with a few more facets on the pavilion.
This shape creates a fantastic solitaire engagement ring in a setting that you can place a halo around or maybe a two step halo. This gives you the Wow affect! Think about using colored diamonds as the accents down the shank or as the halo… even black diamonds! I used black diamonds in the halo around my white round brilliant. It created incredible fire! An oval creates a slenderizing effect on the finger due to the shape.
In the last shape, marquise, we touched on the “bow-tie” effect. In any shaped diamond that the width of the stone is narrower than the length you may see this effect: Marquise, Oval or Pear. The cutter needs to diminish this “bow-tie” to make the brilliance of the stone come through. This is the case with an oval; it needs to have an excellent cut in order to diminish any “bow-tie” effect.
An oval is a wonderful choice as a center stone that you are going to set side stones next to it. It makes a great three stone anniversary ring choice. Your center “present” if you will is the oval, while your past and your future are rounds or smaller ovals.