Kirstie Kelly for Disney by Mouawad

Disney and Mouawad introduce a stunning collection of diamond rings inspired by classic tales of dreams come true.

Collaborating with renowned couture bridal designer Kirstie Kelly, each of the wedding and engagement rings enables the unique spirit and beauty of its namesake Disney Princess through subtle style cues and delicately crafted designs.

Taking her expertise in bridal gowns and love of storytelling. Kirstie considers her collaboration with Disney and Mouawad a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to design an exquisite collection of fine jewelry that will be cherished for years to come.

The disney collection consists of engagement rings with matching wedding bands relates with classic tales. They are cinderella, snow white, belle, sleeping beauty, princess jasmine and ariel

Mouawad Shines at the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

Mouawad Shines at the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show

New York, NY– The annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has earned world recognition for its unparalleled display of beauty and glamour. Contributing to the sparkle on the runway this year were the exquisite jewelry designs by renowned international jeweler Mouawad.

19 million dollars of Mouawad diamond jewelry were used to adorn the models on the runway. Each masterpiece was individually selected by Mouawad to compliment the intricate designs and respective theme of each look. Models wearing Mouawad designs on the runway included Heidi Klum, wearing a superb matching diamond and emerald earrings and bracelet, Marisa Miller who modeled a gorgeous diamond and ruby suite at a value of $1 MM and Ana Beatriz Barros wearing a stunning diamond and yellow sapphire four piece suite featuring over 70 carats of gems.

The Mouawad Group
Mouawad, a name well known for haute joaillierie, is as celebrated for its extensive collection of unique diamonds as its cutting-edge design and retail philosophy. Founded in 1890, the company supplied important jewels to many European royal houses and wealthy individuals. Today Pascal Mouawad, US Director and fourth generation of the Mouawad family, continues that tradition in a modern way by adorning the necks, ears and wrists of today’s “royalty” — supermodels, singers, actresses and women of style from across the globe. Some of the famous faces that have been seen donning Mouawad include Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Giselle Bundchen, Heidi Klum, Karolina Kurkova, Adriana Lima, Tyra Banks, and Nicole Richie just to name a few.

World’s Most Expensive Dress

Malaysian Designer Faisol Abdullah has created what could be the world’s most expensive Dress.

Valvued at $30 million, the masterpiece by Abdullah is adorned with 751 premium diamonds weighing over 1000 carats all intricately crafted by the renowned middle Eastern Jewelry, Robert Mouawad. Incidentally, Mouawad diamonds are the darlings of tinsel town divas like angelina jolie and nicole kidman.

Mouawad’s pear-shaped 70 carat diamond sets the focus for the maroon tafetta silk evening gown that also features a majestic 6-metre train.

Dubbed the “Nightingale of Kuala Lumpur”, only 500 handpicked privileged guests will get to view the fashion statement debut at the Mercedes-Benz STYLO Fashion Awards Gala on April 3 at teh KL Lake Gardens

ANd the best part of it all: STYLO International, the dress commissioner, will donate five percent of the sale price to a Gaza Fundraising initiative to do their bit for the economy.

Malaysian Designer Faisol Abdullah has created what could be the world’s most expensive Dress.
Valvued at $30 million, the masterpiece by Abdullah is adorned with 751 premium diamonds weighing over 1000 carats all intricately crafted by the renowned middle Eastern Jewelry, Robert Mouawad. Incidentally, Mouawad diamonds are the darlings of tinsel town divas like angelina jolie and nicole kidman.
Mouawad’s pear-shaped 70 carat diamond sets the focus for the maroon tafetta silk evening gown that also features a majestic 6-metre train.
Dubbed the “Nightingale of Kuala Lumpur”, only 500 handpicked privileged guests will get to view the fashion statement debut at the Mercedes-Benz STYLO Fashion Awards Gala on April 3 at teh KL Lake Gardens
ANd the best part of it all: STYLO International, the dress commissioner, will donate five percent of the sale price to a Gaza Fundraising initiative to do their bit for the economy.

Kim Kardashian, Bebe Launch Costume Jewelry

Kim Kardashian is raising her industry profile in a partnership with pascal mouawad to create a costume jewelry line for Bebe making its debut for holiday and a signature line for wider distribution in the spring.

“Designing {clothes for Bebe] inspired me so much” she said. ” I wanted to create an accessoru line that not only I would wear, but more importantly, my fans would wear. I read lots of comments on fashion blogs, twitter and Facebook about my line and I wanted to give the fans what they have been asking for”

Los Angeles-based Mouawad is known for his collaborations with heidi Klum and Erin Wasson, Nicole Richie and Jessica Simpson, among others.

“The celebrities are so involved in the process from design to promotion, and that is what makes the fans buy it,” he said. “House of Harlow 1961 is doing extremely well because it speaks about Nicole. The same will happen with Kim.”

Mouawad said kardashian’s line will be the most mass targeted in his portfolio, with the majority of the piceces retailing for less that $100. THe range is $25 to $250.

“We are not looking to bring high-end jewelry to the marketplace; we are targeting Middle America,” he said. “I see it in major department stores,those with 200 to 500 doors, and some specialty boutiques,”

Source – Pascal Mouwad Editorial Coverage

Like a diamond in the sky…

Even if there is not a great deal of water, it looks like there is material for jewelry in the solar system. Scientists report the likelihood of diamonds floating in oceans of carbon on Neptune and Uranus, writes S Ananthanarayanan

A group of scientists in California report the possibility of icebergs of diamond afloat in oceans of carbon on Neptune and Uranus. Natural diamonds are believed to have formed when carbon solidified under great pressure, at some point in the violent geological past of the earth. Attempts to reproduce these conditions in the laboratory have not completely failed and there is a thriving industry of ‘synthetic’ diamonds, with a market both for jewelry and industry.

Dr Jon Eggert of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and colleagues placed a small diamond, a tenth of a carat, under intense lasers and subjected it to pressures of millions of atmospheres and temperatures above 50,0000C. The result was a drop of melted diamond, kept liquid because of the pressure. When the pressure dropped to 11 atmospheres, diamond crystals formed and floated on the surface of the melt. As the pressure dropped, the temperature remained the same, but the diamond condensate became larger, and not sinking, but afloat. Diamond hence forms under these pressures and shows anomalous expansion when it freezes.

These kinds of pressures and temperatures are considered to exist within the core of the giant planets, Neptune and Uranus. These planets also consist of carbon to about 10 per cent. In the core, the carbon would be in liquid state and at a pressure of millions of earth atmospheres. The carbon that condenses in these conditions would crystalise as diamond and float like icebergs on the ocean of molten carbon, under pressure.

Allotropes of carbon
Diamond of course is pure carbon, the same as a piece of coal, or the graphite in our ‘lead’ pencils. Carbon has an atomic structure that makes it versatile both in combination with other elements, to form compounds, as well as with other carbon atoms, to form crystals.

The atoms of all elements consist of a massive, positively charged core, surrounded by tiny, negatively charged electrons, equal in number to the charge of the core. These electrons, which keep from falling into the core by whirling round, like planets around a sun, are arranged in ‘shells’, which become the most stable when they consist of eight electrons.

All elements then have a few extra electrons in the last shell, which then tries, through combination with other atoms, to achieve the numbers of two or eight. Carbon is thus able to mix and match, and can form versatile chemical forms, including the ‘ring’ and the ‘chain’ forms of organic chemistry, when it combines with other elements, or the different crystal forms, in the pure state.

These crystalline forms are called allotropes and in carbon, we have eight different forms – the structure-less, amorphous carbon like coal, the 2-D structure in sheets, which is graphite and is easily deformed, the very hard 3-D structure of diamond, a hexagonal structure that we find in meteorites and then the structures of spheres and cylinders, the buckyballs and buckytubes.

The diamond structure, the rarest of natural forms is the iridescent, very hard form, used as a gem stone, as an industrial abrasive and in electronics for its special heat-conducting and electric properties.

Synthetic diamond
Which allotropic form carbon takes when it solidifies depends on the conditions. When soot forms, it is usually the amorphous form. For graphite, there is need for high temperatures, when the carbon atoms form into sheets. Depositing from the vapour can result in balls and tubes, the Bucky Fullerenes. But for the 3-D, ‘cubic’ form of diamond, we need tremendous pressures, which may have existed when the rocks condensed and formed on the earth or may have existed in meteorites, which also contain diamonds.

Normal crystals are produced by melting the substance and allowing the melt to cool slowly, usually in the form of a cone, where the vertex provides a pole, from which the crystal can begin to form. This cannot work with diamond, because when diamond is heated, we don’t get melted diamond but melted graphite, and when it cools, what forms is just graphite.

High temperatures, great pressure
For diamonds, we need the melt under tremendous pressure, which also implies very high temperatures. Attempts to create these conditions have been made since 1797, when it was discovered that diamond was nothing but carbon. Several well-known attempts are on record, of dissolving carbon in molten metals and then rapidly freezing the solvent. The pressure created by the solidification was expected to squeeze the carbon into diamond. Similar innovative methods were tried, with success reported, but not replicated right till the 1940s and 50s.

They were able to reach temperatures of 3,5000C and pressures of about 35,000 atmospheres. But they were able to actually create diamond grains only in 1954, with an arrangement to reach more than 1,00,000 atmospheres and a temperature over 2,0000C.

The first gem-quality diamonds were created in 1971, and these were found to be ‘nitrogen doped’, which gave them the yellow tint of natural yellow diamonds. It was possible to limit the nitrogen and achieve colourless diamonds, but the effort was too costly to be worth it. The methods have been refined into a series of HPHT (high pressure, high temperature) methods, with steadily better results.

courtesy
Deccan Herald

Tolkowsky: The Father of the Modern Briliant Cut

Have you ever wondered where the term “Ideal Cut” comes from? The story of the “Ideal Cut” began in 1919, when a youthful engineer by the name of Marcel Tolkowsky, took a systematic approach to measuring the optics of a diamond, and changed the diamond cutting world forever, when he published his book; “Diamond Design – A study of the reflection and refraction of light in a diamond”.
One of the most fascinating passages in his book covers “dispersion” and what we see as white light from a diamond, is actually made of up of a range of different colors which produce white by their superposition. This decomposition of white light into its components creates the phenomena we know as “the fire” of a diamond. When a ray of light passes through a well-cut diamond, it is “refracted” or “bent” at a large angle, and as a result, the colors of the spectrum, becoming broadly separated, strike a viewers’ eye individually, so that in one instant she sees a ray of vivid blue, at another moment, flaming scarlet or shining green, while perhaps at the next second, a concentrated beam of the purest white can be seen reflected in her direction. Moreover, all of these colors changes relentlessly with the smallest motion of the diamond.
If you’re looking for an absolutely breathtaking selection of Ideal cut round diamonds, Heart shape diamonds, and Princess Cut diamonds with exceptional fire and amazing brilliance, shop at Mondera, where you’ll find everything you can possibly imagine about diamonds and more.

How to Buy a Diamond

Browse through our articles on Color, Clarity, Cut and Carat weight to understand the criteria that determine diamond value. Then visit the diamond site in our Learning Center.

Want to know how to get the best diamond for your money? Follow our expert advice in choosing a high-quality diamond for a price that suits your lifestyle.

Go to our Mondera Top Selections to see how cut impacts the beauty of the diamond you select. Our own diamond buyer has judged these diamonds as well cut, and we stand behind our diamonds with a 30-day, no-questions-asked return policy.

Concerned about your diamond’s pedigree? All of Mondera’s loose diamonds are independentlly graded for quality by the Gemological Institute of America Gem Trade Laboratory (GIA) and independently graded for cut by the American Gem Society Gem Laboratory (AGS). These are the most highly respected labs in the field. We send a copy of their original reports with the diamond for your review and, to prevent fraud, we also send the original copies of those reports 30 days after your purchase.

Mondera offers the best quality diamonds at very competitive prices and backs up that quality with official GIA and AGS reports. Don’t compromise quality and value by dealing with an online or offline retailer who claims better value for an inferior product without having the proper GIA and AGS credentials to support those claims.

Buying an engagement ring is a process of the right choices. At Mondera we offer a variety of settings from traditional solitaires to gemstone accented settings.
Click here to view our collection of settings.

To buy the right diamond at the right price, go directly to our Diamond Search Tools.

Dimaond Cut

Cut is perhaps the most important of the four Cs, so it is important to understand how this quality affects the properties and values of a diamond.

The angles and finish of any diamond are what determine its ability to handle light. A good cut gives a diamond brilliance (the brightness that seems to come from the very heart of the diamond) and scintillation and dispersion (the sparks of color that seem to leap out from the diamond’s surface when the diamond is tilted back and forth).

[Don't confuse Cut with Shape. Cut refers to how well the diamond has been designed and proportioned by the cutter. Shape refers to the general silhouette or outline of the diamond. For more on shape, click here.]

As you can see in the images below, when a diamond is well-cut, the light that enters through the table travels deep into the pavilion. Once light reaches the pavilion, it bounces back and forth on the mirror-like inside walls of the pavilion, multiplying in brightness and intensity before reflecting back out of the diamond through the table and to the observer’s eye.

To understand how the pavilion works to make a diamond so brilliant, think of an empty room that has a single candle as its only source of light. If a mirror is added to the room, the mirror will reflect the image of the candle, creating a second image of the flame and essentially doubling the amount of light in the room. If more mirrors are added to the room, the brightness in the room will increase as the number of reflections of the original candle flame increases. A well-cut diamond works in much the same way as a series of mirrors that multiply the brilliance of the original light source. This light is the brilliance we mentioned, and it’s this effect that makes diamonds so mesmerizing.

However, when a diamond is poorly cut (either too shallow or too deep), the light that enters through the table reaches the pavilion facets at the wrong angle and fails to be intensified and reflected properly; it ‘leaks’ out from the sides or bottom of the diamond rather than reflecting back through the table to the eye. Less light reflected back to the eye means less brilliance.

There is no single measurement or proportion that automatically makes a diamond beautiful. Rather, a great cut depends on the carefully-planned interaction of many proportions to create a diamond’s beauty and ability to handle light.

These are the main proportions that help to determine a diamond’s cut:

Diameter: The length and width of the diamond as measured across the girdle. Primarily, the Diameter gives you an idea of the diamond’s physical size, but it is also used as point of comparison to calculate the diamond’s table percentage, total depth percentage, crown height, and pavilion depth.

Table: This is the large, flat facet at the very top of the diamond. Table size or table percentage describes how large the table is in comparison to the diameter of the entire diamond. For example, a 57% table is a table that is 57% as wide as the diamond’s diameter. Most jewelers tell customers that a small table is best, and many customers do like the look of a small table. However, a small table is not critical to a diamond’s brilliance and, in fact, there are many round diamonds that have tables of 60% or even 62% that achieve a GIA cut grade of Excellent.

Crown: The upper portion of a cut gemstone, above the girdle. The crown height describes how deep the crown is in comparison to the width of the diamond’s diameter. The crown angle describes the angle at which the bezel facets intersect with the table plane. The angles and proportions of the crown create the effect known as dispersion.

Girdle: The narrow rim of a diamond that separates the crown from the pavilion. It is the widest part of the stone. A good girdle should be thick enough to protect the diamond at its vulnerable edges. A girdle that is too thin will leave the diamond vulnerable and also make it difficult to set in jewelry; a girdle that is too thick will needlessly add extra mass and carat weight to the diamond without increasing the diamond’s diameter in millimeters.

Pavilion: The lower portion of the diamond, below the girdle. The pavilion depth describes how deep the pavilion is in comparison to the width of the diamond’s diameter. The pavilion angle describes the angle at which the pavilion main facet plane intersects with the table plane. The angles and proportions of the pavilion help to create the effect known as brilliance.

Depth: The height of a gemstone, from the culet to the table. Total depth or depth percentage describes how deep the diamond is in comparison to the diameter of the entire diamond. The diamond should be deep enough to adequately absorb and reflect light. If the diamond is too shallow, the light will not be effectively reflected; if it is too deep, the diamond may not reflect the light properly and it will also “waste” carat weight in the bottom of the diamond where it cannot be seen instead of contributing that weight to the size or diameter of the diamond.

Culet: The tiny facet on the bottom of the pavilion. When it exists, this is usually the smallest facet on the diamond and it is intended to protect the pointy bottom of the diamond from becoming chipped or damaged. However, some diamonds do not have a culet at all and just end in a point at the bottom of the pavilion. Once a diamond is mounted, the pavilion is protected by the setting, so the presence or absence of a culet will not really affect the appearance or durability of most diamonds.

Everyone knows that the angles and proportions of the crown and pavilion facets determine whether a diamond will be bright and lively or dark and lifeless. So, if a 57% table and 34 degree crown angle look wonderful on one diamond, why isn’t every diamond cut exactly the same way?

The simple answer is that there is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ approach to diamond cutting. Each diamond is a one-of-a-kind custom-designed creation.

One reason is that, even with the new research and lab-assigned cut grades that are available, different people have different ideas of what makes a diamond beautiful. For example, some people like very small tables of 53% or 54% and some people like larger tables of 58% or 60%. Sometimes the reason for a particular diamond’s appeal isn’t even something that an individual can articulate; the diamond simply ‘speaks’ to that person. Think of a jewelry store with 10 diamonds lined up on the countertop, all weighing .50 carats, all with G VS1 quality, and all certified by AGS as Ideal Cut diamonds. If 10 people were asked to pick their favorite diamond from among this group, it is unlikely that all 10 people would identify the same exact diamond as their unanimous favorite. So, while well-cut diamonds should conform to a certain range of proportions, they don’t all have to be cut to only one exact set of proportions. Beauty can be found in many subtly different forms.

Even if we could get everyone to agree on one exact set of ‘perfect’ measurements, creating the perfect cut is extremely difficult. Rough diamond crystals vary widely in shape, weight, and clarity when they come out of the earth. The ideal natural shape of a rough diamond is an octahedron (an 8-sided crystal that resembles 2 pyramids stuck together base-to-base). In reality, though, most rough diamond crystals have strange irregular shapes and indentations that create limitations on what type of polished gem can be created out of them.

A diamond cutter has to decide what type of diamond shape (for example, round, pear, or emerald cut) the rough crystal is suited for: a long thin crystal isn’t suitable for making a round diamond, but it would be just right for creating a pear or marquise; and a stone that is relatively flat from top to bottom won’t be deep enough to use for a radiant (which depends on a deep pavilion to create the proper brilliance) so it might be used to create a trilliant, which requires more shallow proportions.

The cutter also needs to consider how he can create the largest possible polished diamond out of the existing rough so that he doesn’t waste any of the valuable crystal.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, he must decide which set of proportions and variations in design will allow him to achieve the highest clarity that is possible. Most diamonds contain at least some inclusions, which are spread out randomly throughout the stone. The cutter’s goal is to find a way to eliminate the parts of the rough crystal that contain large inclusions and to design the diamond so that the remaining inclusions will be located off to the edges or in the pavilion of the polished gem, where they are less likely to be visible to the naked eye.

A diamond cutter must consider all of these factors—shape, carat weight, clarity—while still striving to create a diamond that is symmetrical and well-proportioned. Since each rough diamond has its own natural variations, the “solution” to creating a great stone has to be reinvented with every new rough crystal.

All of these considerations mean that there is no hard-and-fast description of the ‘perfect’ cut for a diamond. Because of this, it can be extremely difficult for the average consumer to figure out which diamond is the best choice.

To make the process of choosing a diamond easier, Mondera provides a cut grade for every certified loose diamond in our Diamond Store.

All of the loose diamonds in our Diamond Store are certified by either GIA or AGS. Both of these labs have developed grading systems that help consumers to evaluate round diamonds’ quality of cut. In situations where a GIA or AGS cut grade is not available (that is, if a diamond is fancy shaped, or a round diamond certified by GIA before 2006) Mondera provides a cut grade to allow you to compare the diamonds.

How GIA Grades Cut

GIA’s cut grading system considers 7 qualities: Brightness, Fire, and Scintillation (which are considered the Face-Up Appearance components of the cut grade); Weight Ratio and Durability (the Design components); and Polish and Symmetry (the Craftsmanship components). GIA rates the Cut of diamonds as either Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor.

How AGS Grades Cut

AGS’s cut grading system considers 11 qualities: Brightness, Dispersion, Leakage, and Contrast (the Light Performance components); Durability, Tilt, Weight Ratio, Girdle Thickness, and Culet Size (the Proportions components), and Polish and Symmetry (the Finish components). AGS rates the Cut of diamonds as either Ideal, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor.

How Mondera Grades Cut

If a diamond does not have lab-assigned cut grade from GIA or AGS, Mondera considers 6 qualities in order to determine the appropriate cut grade: Depth Percentage, Table Percentage, Girdle Thickness, Culet Size, Polish, and Symmetry.

Ideal

Diamonds that are described by Mondera as Ideal have a make which is considered fine by anyone in the industry. This cut is intended to maximize brilliance, and the typically smaller table sizes of these diamonds have the added benefit of creating a great deal of dispersion or ‘fire’ as well. Ideal quality diamonds are truly for the person who enjoys knowing that he has one of the finest things that money can buy.

The Ideal cut grade includes diamonds that are graded as AGS Ideal or GIA Excellent, and diamonds that have been assigned an Ideal cut grade by Mondera.

Very Good

Diamonds that are described by Mondera as Very Good are of an excellent make. They reflect most of the light that enters them, creating a good deal of brilliance. With these diamonds, the cutters have chosen to stray slightly from the preferred diamond proportions in order to create a larger diamond. The result is that these diamonds fall slightly outside of some customers’ preferences in terms of, for example, table size or girdle width. In many cases, though, many of the proportions of diamonds in this range will overlap with certain proportions of diamonds in the Ideal range. Generally, the price of these diamonds is slightly below that of Ideal cuts.

The Very Good cut grade includes diamonds that are graded as AGS Excellent, AGS Very Good, or GIA Very Good, and diamonds that have been assigned a Very Good cut grade by Mondera.

Good

Diamonds that are described by Mondera as Good reflect much of the light that enters them. Their proportions fall outside of the preferred range because the cutter has chosen to create the largest possible diamond from the original rough crystal, rather than cutting extra weight off to create a smaller Very Good quality diamond. Diamonds in this range offer an excellent cost-savings to customers who want to stay in a budget without sacrificing quality or beauty.

The Good cut grade includes diamonds that are graded as AGS Good or GIA Good, and diamonds that have been assigned a Good cut grade by Mondera.

Fair and Poor

A diamond that is graded as Fair or Poor will reflect only a small proportion of the light that enters it. Typically these diamonds have been cut to maximize the carat weight over most other considerations. We do not recommend this type of cut. To ensure that our customers enjoy only fine, classic jewelry, Mondera does not offer diamonds that have been graded as Fair or Poor.

Want to know the full story behind Ideal Cut diamonds?
Click here for an in-depth explanation of the mechanics and formulae that led to the Ideal Cut.

Diamonds come in all kinds of shapes, including round, heart and princess cut diamonds. To learn more about different diamond shapes, click here

Diamond Clarity

When we speak of a diamond’s clarity, we are referring to the presence of identifying characteristics on and within the stone. While most of these characteristics are inherent qualities of the rough diamond and have been present since the earliest stages of the crystal’s growth below ground, a few are actually a result of the harsh stress that a diamond undergoes during the cutting process itself.

If you think about the incredible amount of pressure it takes to create a diamond, it’s no surprise that many diamonds have inclusions—scratches, blemishes, or non-diamond mineral material—on their surface or inside. Diamonds with no or few inclusions and blemishes are more highly valued than those with lower clarity, not just because they are more pleasing to the eye, but also because they are rarer.

Diamonds are graded for clarity under 10x loupe magnification. Grades range from Internally Flawless, diamonds which are completely free of blemishes and inclusions even under 10x magnification, to Imperfect 3, diamonds which possess large, heavy blemishes and inclusions that are visible to the naked eye.

F-IF: Flawless or Internally Flawless. Diamonds in this range have no internal inclusions. Very rare.

VVS1-VVS2: Very Very Slightly Included. Inclusions are tiny and few in number and are very difficult to detect, even under 10x magnification.

VS1-VS2: Very Slightly Included. Inclusions are small and are generally invisible to the naked eye and seen only under 10x magnification.

SI1-SI2: Slightly Included. Inclusions are usually either a little larger or greater in number than in a VS stone, or are located more centrally within the stone, rather than off to the sides. These inclusions are fairly easy to find under 10x magnification, though they are usually still invisible to the naked eye. In some cases, inclusions might be slightly visible to the naked eye when the diamond is viewed at certain angles.

I1-I2-I3: Included. Inclusions are large and/or numerous and may be visible to the naked eye. Diamonds with a grade of I3 are generally not considered jewelry-quality and they are not sold by Mondera.

While the presence of these clarity characteristics do lower the clarity grade, and therefore the value, of a diamond they can also be viewed as proof of a diamond’s identity. Most AGS and GIA certificates (except for dossiers) include what is known as a “plot” of a diamond’s inclusions. (Dossiers identify diamonds with an inscription number and a written description of the main clarity characteristics instead of a plot). Since no two diamonds are exactly the same, comparing the uniqueness of your diamond’s clarity characteristics with the plot provided on the diamond certificate offers assurance that the diamond you pay for is the same diamond you receive.

While Flawless diamonds are the rarest, and arguably the most beautiful diamonds, a diamond does not have to be completely clean to be extremely attractive. Those diamonds with VVS and VS grades can be excellent choices as well. More affordable are diamonds that have lower clarity grades but that are still “eye-clean”—that is, diamonds that have no inclusions visible to the naked eye. There are plenty of diamonds in the SI1, SI2 and sometimes even I1 clarity ranges that can offer an excellent cost-savings and that will have an eye-clean appearance that makes them indistinguishable from a higher-clarity diamond when viewed by the naked eye.

The pricing of a diamond is based, in part, on its clarity.

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Diamond Color

When jewelers speak of a diamond’s color they are usually referring to the presence or absence of color in white diamonds. Color is a result of the composition of the diamond, and it never changes over time.

Because a colorless diamond, like a clear window, allows more light to pass through it than a colored diamond, colorless diamonds emit more sparkle and fire. The formation process of a diamond ensures that only a few, rare diamonds are truly colorless. Thus the whiter a diamond’s color, the greater its value.

(Note that fancy color diamonds do not follow this rule. These diamonds, which are very rare and very expensive, can be any color from blue to green to bright yellow. They are actually more valuable for their color.)

To grade ‘whiteness’ or colorlessness, most jewelers refer to GIA’s professional color scale that begins with the highest rating of D for colorless, and travels down the alphabet to grade stones with traces of very faint or light yellowish or brownish color. The color scale continues all the way to Z.

D-E-F

G-H-I

J-K-L

M-N-O

P-Q-R

S-T-U

V-W-X

Diamonds graded D through F are naturally the most valuable and desirable because of their rarity. Such diamonds are a treat for the eyes of anyone. But you can still obtain very attractive diamonds that are graded slightly less than colorless. And diamonds graded G through I show virtually no color that is visible to the untrained eye.

And while a very, very faint hint of yellow will be apparent in diamonds graded J through M, this color can often be minimized by carefully selecting the right jewelry in which to mount your diamond. Keep in mind that, while most people strive to buy the most colorless diamond they can afford, there are many people who actually prefer the warmer glow of lower-color diamonds.

To ensure that our customers enjoy only fine, classic jewelry, Mondera does not offer diamonds that have been graded below M.

Fluorescence is an effect that is seen in some gem-quality diamonds when they are exposed to long-wave ultraviolet light (such as the lighting frequently seen in dance clubs). Under most lighting conditions, this fluorescence is not detectable to the eye. While most gemologists prefer diamonds without this effect, some people enjoy it. It’s really just a matter of aesthetics.

Many people have a lot of questions about fluorescence. Read our handy Fluorescence FAQ, here.

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