A SQUARE CAN BE CENTRED AND STILL SIT CROOKED
Set a round diamond a few degrees off true and nothing happens. A circle has no orientation — every rotation of it is the same rotation — so the setter has one job, which is to get it level and centred. A square has four correct positions and an infinity of wrong ones. A princess cut can sit perfectly centred in its seat and still read as tilted, because a square declares an angle, and the eye measures that angle against the edge of the ear.
On a pair the problem doubles. Each stone has to sit square to the ear it is worn on, and both have to sit square to one another, or the pair looks crooked even when each stud on its own looks correct. Two stones, two axes, and neither can be judged without the other in view.
THE SETTING
Each stone sits in a collet — a seat cut to the square outline of the diamond, four straight walls closing over the girdle at every point. A bezel is wrapped around a stone and can be worked after the fact. A collet is the opposite: the socket is cut first and the diamond is lowered into it, so the seat has to match the girdle before the stone ever arrives. A fraction wide and the stone can turn in its seat. A fraction tight and it will not seat at all.
It is also the right setting for this cut. A princess carries its weight at four unprotected points, and those corners are where a diamond chips. A seat that closes at every point leaves the least of them exposed — which is what a stud wants, being the piece a person puts in and forgets about.
There is nothing else on the pair. Two diamonds, two collars, 1.33 grams of gold in 14K.
SPECIFICATIONS
Diamonds — 2 princess cut, 4.10 mm, 0.433 ct each. 0.87 ct total.
Certification — every diamond of 0.20 ct and above ships with its certificate: GIA for natural, IGI for lab-grown. Both qualify.
Setting — Collet.
Metal — 14K or 18K gold, in yellow, white or rose. 1.33 g at 14K, 1.57 g at 18K.
Diamond origin — natural or lab-grown, to preference.
Made to order. Two to three weeks from order to dispatch.
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