When the German lapidary Bernd Munsteiner introduced the “fantasy cut” to the colored stone industry in the 1960s, he did so by taking a wildly unconventional approach to polishing and faceting. Using relatively inexpensive natural gem material such as quartz, he cut stones so that light reflected and refracted in ways that gemstone buyers had never seen before.
“Munsteiner freely sliced away carats on the backs of gemstones to create spectacular light shows on their fronts,” GIA wrote in 2014. “The only ideal proportion he acknowledged was the one that freed the natural beauty he saw hiding in the stone.”
Diamond cutters have almost never enjoyed that kind of freedom. That’s because diamonds, until recently, were cut to maximize both sparkle and yield.
Among a growing cohort of lab-grown diamond jewelers, however, Munsteiner’s pioneering fantasy cut concept is finding a new expression. Just look to the Paris-based jeweler Unsaid. Founded in 2019, and reinvented in 2022, the brand has introduced a slew of signature cuts that showcase what’s possible when yield is deprioritized.
“The difference compared with the old-fashioned way of doing things is that the cut of the diamond is now part of the creation,” Philippe Nobile, chairman of Unsaid, tells JCK.
Unsaid’s cutting team, based in Israel, continues to design cuts that simply can’t (or wouldn’t) be replicated with consistency in the mined diamond world.
The Tear collection, for example, is based on a traditional pear shape whose pavilion has been removed, “which makes the play of light really unbelievable,” Nobile says.
The Phoenix cut recalls the look of a shield-cut stone, but with vertical lines that meet at the jewels’ peak. “The fire is so strong that the less light you have around you, the more it’s shining because the fire of the cut is superstrong,” Nobile says.
The playful, spherical Bubble cut allows diamonds to glow all around, and served as the starting point for Unsaid’s Rem X ring, which won the 2023 “Best of the Best” Red Dot Design Award for its eternity band of 20 Bubble-cut spheres boasting 2,061 facets. Yowza!
Top: Bubble-cut lab-grown diamond by Unsaid
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