Even Jewellers Could Not Agree On Harry Styles’ Ring, So Here Is How To Tell A Radiant Cut Apart

When the news got out this spring that Harry Styles and Zoë Kravitz were engaged, the first thing half the internet did was zoom in on her left hand, and the jewellers were no different. The trouble was that most of what anyone had to go on was a handful of blurry paparazzi photos, so you had people who look at diamonds all day for a living calling the same ring 3 or 4 different things.

And honestly, that is the most useful thing to come out of it for anyone choosing a ring of their own, because if the professionals could not agree from a photo, there is not much hope for the rest of us scrolling through a jeweller’s website at 11 at night. So we went through what they said, and then through what tells one shape from another.

What The Experts Said About The Styles Ring

Going by what JCK, the American jewellery trade magazine, and Coveteur collected from people in the trade, this is how far apart they were:

• The cut: most called it an elongated cushion, one said it could be an old mine cut and vintage, which would still be a cushion sort of outline, and Lisa Ingram at Kay Jewelers said it looked more like a radiant or a cushion.
• The size: guesses ran from about 5 to 6 carats at one end to 8 to 12 at the other, and none of them is the diamond’s actual weight.
• The band: Ingram saw a thin, minimalist yellow gold band, and Madeleine Sangster described a thicker, more sculptural one.
• The value: somewhere between $200,000 and $1 million, depending on who you ask, and that is an estimate, not a price anyone has confirmed.

Hmm, so that is the cut, the size and the band all up for debate, from the same photos. Everybody did agree it was long, rectangular, yellow gold and in a bezel, and that is about it.

Those were the early guesses, mind. Zoë Kravitz showed the ring more clearly at a Jessica McCormack event on 24 June, and when ELLE went back to jewellers with the newer photos in July, most of them leaned towards an elongated cushion, some saying an old mine style cushion. The exact details still have not been confirmed by anyone who has actually held it.

Radiant Or Cushion, And How You Tell Them Apart

Now, the reason a long cushion and a long radiant get mixed up so easily is that from a distance they are the same sort of shape, a rectangle with the corners taken off. The difference is in how the corners are taken off.

A radiant has its corners cut straight across, so you get a short flat edge at each corner. A cushion has its corners rounded off, more like a pillow, which is where the name comes from.

GIA, which grades diamonds, describes the radiant as square or rectangular with cropped corners, and that word cropped is the one to hang on to. If you are looking at a ring online and cannot tell which you have, zoom right in on one corner. A little straight line points to radiant. A soft curve points to cushion. It is a first clue rather than a proper test, because a bezel can hide some of the corner and some modified cushions throw light a lot like a radiant does, so the grading report is the thing that actually confirms the shape. On a blurry photo of Zoë Kravitz’s hand you cannot properly see either, which is half the reason the experts were guessing.

Square Or Long Is A Number You Can Work Out

Radiants come square and they come long, and the Styles ring is the long sort, whatever it turns out to be. The way jewellers put a number on it is the length to width ratio, which is the length divided by the width:

• 6.0mm long × 6.0mm wide = a ratio of 1.00, so a square.
• 8.4mm long × 6.0mm wide = a ratio of 1.40, so a long rectangle.
• 7.0mm long × 5.0mm wide = also 1.40.

Have a look at the last 2 there. Same ratio, same shape, but one is a good bit bigger than the other on your finger, so the ratio tells you how long the stone looks for its width and nothing at all about how much finger it covers. That is why you want the actual millimetres written down for any ring you like, because carat weight is how heavy a diamond is, not how big it looks from above, and the 5 to 12 carat guesses for the Styles ring were people trying to work back from a photo.

Why The Band Changed What Everyone Saw

The thin band versus thick band argument over the Styles ring is a bigger deal than it sounds, because the band changes how big and how long the stone looks to you. A slim band leaves the diamond doing all the talking, and a wide band gives the metal more say, so the ring looks heavier even with the exact same stone in it.

You can see this for yourself without a celebrity in sight. Among the radiant diamond solitaire designs at Lily Arkwright, the Lulu in platinum lists a 1.65mm band and the Regent lists a 4mm band, so that is more than double the metal. They are 2 different designs, so the product photos may not show the same size of diamond either, but put them side by side and you are comparing the bands as much as the diamonds, which is exactly what happened when everyone was squinting at Zoë Kravitz’s hand.

So if you are trying to decide between square and long, ask to see them in the same metal with roughly the same band, otherwise you are not comparing shapes at all.

What To Ask For Before You Choose

• The measurements in millimetres, length and width, not only the carat weight.
• A short video of the actual diamond moving slowly, in the same light as the others, so you are judging the stone you would get and not a sample in the photo.
• The same band width when comparing shapes, or at least knowing what the band is on each one.

For the rest of the ring, the setting, the band and how it sits next to a wedding ring, our guide to engagement ring styles goes through the bigger choices. And if a jeweller you trust cannot tell a radiant from a cushion from your screenshot, you are in good company this year.