The stone, in plain English.
The cut is the only C entirely in human hands. A round brilliant is cut with 58 tiny mirrors, each angled to bounce light through the top of the stone. Get the angles right — and the stone dances. Get them wrong — and it looks like glass. Cut is the difference between a diamond that catches the room and one that sits inertly on the finger. We buy stones graded Excellent or Ideal in cut. Nothing lower reaches the atelier.
Colour is measured D (colourless) through Z (light yellow). Below H, the eye starts to notice. Above H, you're paying for a difference you cannot see. Our advice: pick G or H for white metals; F or G if the setting is platinum and the stone will sit alone. On yellow gold, even I will read colourless. Save the money for cut.
Every diamond has natural inclusions — the fingerprints of its formation. Clarity is a scale from Flawless (FL) down to Included (I3). For an engagement ring worn every day, VS1 or VS2 is our sweet spot: inclusions invisible to the naked eye, and the stone costs less than an equivalent VVS. Anything below SI1 begins to show.
Carat measures weight, not size. A one-carat round brilliant is roughly 6.5 mm across; a two-carat is 8.2 mm — not double the width. Buy the size that fits the finger, not the number that sounds impressive. A well-cut 0.9 ct will out-sparkle a badly cut 1.2 ct every single time.
The four Cs describe the stone. The fifth describes you. A ring should feel right in your hand, on your finger, in the room. Come sit with a few at our Bandra atelier — daylight, candlelight, the honest afternoon. The stone you keep coming back to is the one to take home.
