RADIANT CUT DIAMOND JEWELRY

Same outline, opposite interiors. Both are cut-cornered rectangles, so from across a room they look alike. An emerald cut is a step cut, long flat facets in parallel rows, so it reads clear and glassy, more like looking into ice than at fireworks. A radiant is brilliant faceted, the same family of triangular and kite facets a round uses, packed into that rectangle. So a radiant sparkles like a round and stretches the finger like an emerald cut. If you love the shape but the emerald cut looks too quiet to you, radiant is the answer to that.

Yes, and it's the corners that do it. A princess has four sharp right-angle corners, and a corner is the thinnest, most exposed part of any stone, which is why a chipped princess is nearly always chipped at a corner. A radiant's corners are trimmed off, so there's a short flat edge there instead of a knife point and more stone for a prong to grip. We cover the corners on both, but the radiant gives us something better to hold. If you want the rectangular look on a ring worn every day, that trimmed corner is a real argument.

Considerably. Brilliant faceting breaks light up and scatters it, and scattered light disguises small inclusions and a touch of warmth in the color. A step cut does the opposite: those long flat facets act like windows, so an emerald cut shows you everything inside it and you end up paying for clarity to keep it clean. On a radiant you can usually take a lower clarity grade, put the difference into size, and see nothing different face up. That's the practical reason people choose one over the other.

Both, and the ratio decides which you're looking at. Around 1.00 to 1.05 length to width the stone reads square, and people mistake it for a princess. Push it out to 1.25 or 1.50 and it reads long, and people mistake it for an emerald cut. A square radiant sits well in a halo and on a shorter finger. An elongated one lengthens the hand. Tell us which piece you're looking at and we'll tell you the ratio of the stone that's in it.

Per carat, usually yes, and it's a yield difference at the cutting wheel rather than a quality difference. Getting a round takes roughly half the rough crystal away. A radiant keeps far more of it, so you aren't paying for weight that ended up as dust. Prices on this page range as low as $1,025.99, and if size is the thing you're after, the lab grown side of the switch goes furthest per dollar.