Diamond Shapes Guide: How Each One Wears

Shape is the outline of a diamond viewed face up: the silhouette you would trace if you looked straight down on the stone. Round, oval, pear, emerald, marquise, hexagonal. That outline is the first decision a buyer makes, and it is purely a matter of taste. There is no better or worse shape, only the one you want to look at every day.

Shape is not the same thing as cut, and the two words are the most confused pair in diamond buying. Shape is the outline; cut is the faceting and proportioning that decides how the stone returns light to your eye. Two diamonds can share the exact same outline and look like different stones, because one is well cut and one is not. We keep them straight in our cut vs shape guide. This page is about the outlines: what each one looks like, how it wears, and who it suits.

Here is the full directory in one view. The family column tells you whether a shape is round, a curved fancy, an angular fancy, or part of the elongated group that wears long on the hand.

Every shape below is defined in plain terms in the next section. Treat this table as the map and the section as the detail. One name you will meet that is not in this table: the rose cut. It is a faceting style rather than an outline, so it gets its own section further down.

Round

A round diamond has a circular outline. It is the most popular shape and the one most people mean by "a diamond," so it reads as classic and safe. It suits anyone who wants the familiar, traditional look and the brightest possible return of light. It is the only shape with a full overall cut grade from the labs, which makes its quality the easiest to verify on paper.

Oval

An oval is a round stretched into a longer outline, a curved oblong with no points. It carries the brightness of a round but covers more finger for its weight, and the long line can make the hand look slender. It suits someone who wants the round's sparkle with a softer, more elongated silhouette.

Emerald

An emerald cut is a rectangle with its corners cut off, faceted in long, straight, stepped lines rather than tiny sparkly facets. It reads as clean, architectural, and understated, trading flash for a clear, mirror-like depth. It suits someone who prefers elegance and lines over maximum sparkle, and who likes a vintage, refined look.

Cushion

A cushion cut is a square or slightly rectangular outline with rounded corners, named for its pillow-like shape. It is soft, warm, and a little romantic, with a rounded, antique feel. It suits someone who wants a gentle, vintage character rather than hard edges.

Pear

A pear is a teardrop: rounded at one end and tapering to a single point at the other, like an oval and a marquise combined. It is elegant and distinctive, and worn with the point toward the fingertip it can lengthen the hand. It suits someone who wants something graceful and a touch unconventional without going fully geometric.

Marquise

A marquise is a long, narrow boat shape (a navette) with curved sides that meet in a point at each end. It is dramatic and covers a lot of finger for its weight, with a vintage, regal feel. It suits someone who wants a bold, elongated look with soft, curved edges rather than straight ones.

Three practical facts complete the marquise picture. A classic marquise is commonly cited near a 1.85 to 2.10 length-to-width ratio; longer reads more dramatic, shorter reads fuller. The two pointed ends are the outline's vulnerable spots, so the setting should cover them with a V-tip prong or a bezel. And a marquise Lab Grown Diamond is a real diamond: the same carbon crystal, hardness 10 on the Mohs scale, and the same optics as a mined stone, graded by the same independent labs. On the report itself, IGI and GCAL still issue full 4C-style reports for Lab Grown Diamonds, while GIA moved Lab Grown Diamonds to Premium and Standard descriptive tiers as of 2025-10-01 (Source: GIA, 2025-10-01).

Radiant

A radiant cut is a square or rectangular outline with cut corners, faceted in the brilliant style for plenty of sparkle. It is the lively middle ground between the crisp emerald and the round, bright like a round but with clean, modern edges. It suits someone who wants sparkle and a geometric outline at the same time.

Princess

A princess cut is a square with sharp, uncut corners, brilliant-faceted so it sparkles like a round. It reads as crisp, modern, and geometric. It suits someone who wants a contemporary square stone with a lot of fire, and who likes clean right angles.

Asscher

An asscher cut is a square outline with deeply cut corners, faceted in the same long, stepped lines as an emerald cut; the trade also calls it a square emerald cut. Face up, the cut corners give it a nearly octagonal look, with concentric steps that draw the eye into the center of the stone. It suits someone who wants the emerald's clean, architectural character in a compact, symmetrical square.

Heart

A heart shaped diamond is exactly that outline: two rounded lobes divided by a cleft at the top, tapering to a single point at the bottom. It is brilliant-faceted, so it sparkles like a round, and symmetry decides everything, because uneven lobes are visible at a glance. It suits someone who wants the most literal romantic outline a diamond can take, usually at a carat weight large enough for the shape to read clearly across the room.

Dutch Marquise

A Dutch Marquise is an elongated hexagonal cut: a long, six-sided outline with pointed ends and straight, angled sides, so its edges meet in clean angles rather than a smooth curve. It is not a marquise, despite the name, because its sides are straight, not curved. It reads as modern, geometric, and distinctive, and it covers a lot of finger for its weight. It suits someone who wants a defined, architectural outline that is neither the default round nor the now-common oval. It is our signature cut, and it has its own section below.

A rose cut is a diamond cut with a flat bottom (no pavilion) and a domed crown of triangular facets that meet at a point, named for its resemblance to the spiral of a rose bud. It is one of the oldest cutting styles still in use, and it behaves differently from every modern brilliant on this page.

The difference is optical. A modern brilliant carries most of its facets below the girdle, in the pavilion, and that hidden depth is what produces high sparkle. A rose cut has no pavilion at all, so it returns a soft, glassy glow instead of bright flashes. Fewer facets, a flat back that sits low and close to the finger, and a transparent, antique character: that is the trade you are making, and for many buyers it is the point.

Here is the fact most guides miss: rose cut is a faceting style rather than an outline. You will see rose cut diamonds in round, oval, and pear outlines, which makes it the clearest illustration of the shape-versus-cut distinction this guide keeps returning to. A rose cut Lab Grown Diamond is a real diamond, graded by the same independent labs as any other, so read the grading report as you would for any stone.

The first fork in the road is round or fancy. "Fancy shape" is the trade term for any diamond that is not round: oval, emerald, cushion, pear, marquise, radiant, princess, asscher, heart, hexagonal, and the rest. It is not a quality judgment. It just means everything outside the circle.

The round is the default for two reasons. It is the most popular shape, so it is the safe, expected choice; and its faceting is engineered to return the most light, so it is the benchmark for brightness. It is also the only shape the labs assign a full overall cut grade to. Fancy shapes are not yet graded for overall cut the same way, so on a fancy shape you read the proportions yourself and look at the actual stone, a point we cover in the cut vs shape guide.

Choosing fancy is not a compromise. It is how you get an outline that is yours rather than the one everyone defaults to. The trade-off is simply that you do a little more looking, because a fancy shape rewards the buyer who reads the report and judges the stone in person.

Inside the fancy shapes is a family worth knowing on its own: the elongated and geometric outlines. This is the oval, the emerald, the marquise, and the hexagonal Dutch Marquise. What they share is length: a long axis, a high length-to-width ratio, an outline that runs down the finger rather than sitting in a tight circle.

That length has a practical payoff. Because a diamond's carat is its weight, not its size, the shape decides how much of that weight you actually see across the top of the stone, the face-up footprint called the spread. An elongated shape spends its weight on length, so for the same carat it covers more finger and reads larger than a round of equal weight. We work that idea through in our guide to which diamond shape looks biggest.

Within this family you can pick your edge. The oval and the marquise read long with curved, soft outlines. The emerald and the hexagonal read long with straight, angular ones. If you want the geometric end of the family, the six-sided outline is its own subject: see what is a hexagon cut diamond.

There is a quiet decision underneath the shape choice: how distinctive do you want the ring to be. The round is the safe default. The oval has become the popular alternative to the round, so common now that it is close to a second default. Both are lovely, and both are everywhere.

If you want something that is recognizably a ring you chose, not the one the algorithm chose for everyone, the move is a defined geometric form that is neither the round nor the oval. The point is not novelty for its own sake; a gimmick shape gets tired. The point is a clear, considered outline that is timeless in its lines but uncommon enough to be yours. A long hexagonal outline does exactly that: it is a clean, classical geometry that very few people are wearing.

The Dutch Marquise sits at the geometric end of the elongated family, and it is our signature cut. It is an elongated hexagonal outline: a long, six-sided shape with pointed ends and straight, angled sides, so the edges meet in clean angles rather than the smooth curve of a true marquise. Despite the name, it is not a curved navette; the sides are straight. It carries a high length-to-width ratio, roughly 1.5 to 2.0 (our certified hero stone measures 1.84, IGI), which is why it reads long and covers more finger for its weight, in the same way an oval or a marquise does, but with an angular, architectural line.

"Dutch Marquise" is a trade name, not an officially recognized gemological category, so a grading report describes the geometry rather than printing the words. On one real IGI report for a Dutch Marquise we sell, the shape line read "Hexagonal Modified Brilliant" (IGI report, 2026). That is normal for a named cut, and it is exactly why you read the grading report: the report states the geometry and the face-up measurements in plain terms. We publish a clear, citable definition of the shape because no canonical one exists. Stienhardt controls the Dutch Marquise cut via a special factory relationship, and hand-sets and finishes these Lab Grown Diamonds in New York City, selling direct to consumer, so we own and inspect every stone and hand you its independent report.

Start with the outline you keep coming back to, because shape is preference and there is no wrong answer. Then narrow it: round for the classic default, oval for the popular elongated look, emerald for clean architectural lines, cushion for a soft vintage feel, pear or marquise for graceful drama, radiant or princess for a geometric square, asscher for a stepped, architectural square, heart for the most literal romantic outline, rose cut for a low, antique glow, and the Dutch Marquise for a long, angular, distinctly geometric outline.

Then run three practical checks. On any elongated brilliant (oval, pear, marquise, and the Dutch Marquise), look at the stone face up for the bow-tie, the faint dark band that can cross the center; a well-cut stone keeps it minimal, and our bow-tie and pointed-tip guide shows exactly what to look for. Wherever an outline comes to a point (the pear's tip, the marquise's two ends, the princess's corners, the heart's point, the Dutch Marquise's ends), make sure the setting protects it with a V-tip prong or a bezel. And at Stienhardt the stone and the setting come together: we sell the diamond already set in its ring, so the point protection is part of the design rather than a detail left to chance.

Once you have a shape in mind, two more reads will set you up. To understand why the same shape can look alive or dull, see cut vs shape. To pick the outline that wears largest for the carat, see which diamond shape looks biggest. And if the geometric end of the family is calling, read what is a hexagon cut diamond and then the Dutch Marquise itself. A ring is a love piece you will look at every day, so choose the outline you want to keep looking at, and read the grading report to confirm what you are getting.

If you would rather judge a stone in person, we show by appointment in New York. Book a viewing.