The ring designer
Design your ring, in the round
Six questions, asked the way our gemologist asks them, with your ring taking shape in 3D as you answer. About two minutes; nothing to sign up for.
- Stone
- Shape
- Setting
- Weight
- Quality
- Metal
A ring for the gathering
In the South, the ring rarely waits for a candlelit table. It changes hands at the Nischitartham, the betrothal, with both families watching, once the plates of fruit and flowers have crossed and the date has been fixed. Often there is the ungarala marpidi, the exchange of rings, made standing, in daylight, to applause.
A ring made for that room carries different duties than a ring made for a private proposal. It will be examined by grandmothers and passed between aunts. It will sit on a hand beside jewellery four generations old, and it will be judged in that company. It must be beautiful on the day it is given, and still beautiful forty years on. This is the standard we make to.
నిశ్చితార్థంNischitartham, the betrothal
ఉంగరాల మార్పిడిUngarala marpidi, the exchange of rings
A table, not a counter
You sit down. The stones come out loose, with their GIA Reports beside them, and you may hold them to the light for as long as the decision takes. A colourless diamond or an antique cut, a ruby or a sapphire, the stone is chosen at the tray and not before it, because what suits one hand and one budget does not suit the next. A fifth-generation GIA gemologist explains what you are looking at in plain terms, including the trade-offs nobody advertises.
Nothing is made until you have said yes to a drawing, down to the prong profile and the width of the band. A third of the price reserves your stone. The ring is then cast, set, and finished in our own workshop, five weeks at the outside, and you collect it from the same table where it began.
The stone
A diamond, or a ruby, a sapphire, an emerald. South Indian jewellery wore coloured stones long before the solitaire arrived, and the house chooses each to its own standard.
Vairam
Diamond
White light broken into fire. The hardest stone there is, and the one most engagement rings are made around.
Manikkam
Ruby
A red that holds in daylight and lamplight alike. In the navaratna it is the stone of the Sun, the one set at the centre.
Neelam
Blue sapphire
A deep, velvety blue, and the ruby’s sister: the same mineral, corundum, in another colour. Many families still live with a Neelam for a few days before it is set.
Maragatham
Emerald
A green no other stone has, with a garden of inclusions inside it, the jardin. More brittle than the others, so a halo or a bezel guards its corners.
Tanzanite
Violet in one light, blue in another, and found in one place on earth: the Merelani Hills of Tanzania, where it was discovered in 1967.
A stone of your choice
A pink or yellow sapphire, a spinel, an alexandrite, or a stone from the family’s own jewellery, reset for a new hand. Tell us in a line and we will find it with you, with its laboratory report.
The shape
The stone's outline seen from above. It decides how the ring wears and how it sits on the hand. There are no rules here, only preferences.
Round brilliant
58 facets engineered for maximum fire. The most researched cut in history; every facet angle is mathematically optimised.
Oval
The elongated silhouette flatters every hand. Appears significantly larger than its carat weight, excellent value for size.
Princess
Square with pointed corners. Contemporary brilliance meets geometric precision, a favourite for modern solitaires.
Emerald
Step-cut with a wide open table. Less fire than the brilliant cuts, but extraordinary depth and a quiet, assured confidence.
Cushion
A square or gently oblong outline with softly rounded corners, cut with broad facets that throw wide flashes of light. The shape of the old stones, made for today.
Pear
A teardrop, round at one end and pointed at the other. Worn with the point towards the fingertip it lengthens the hand; a careful setter guards the point with a V-prong.
Marquise
A long oval drawn to two points, cut, the story goes, for the Marquise de Pompadour. It shows the most face-up surface of any shape for its weight; its points are held in protective prongs.
Radiant
A brilliant's faceting laid over an emerald outline: rectangular, corner-cropped, and lit like crushed ice. The youngest cut in this row, born in 1977, and the most fire a straight-edged stone can carry.
Old mine
The brilliant's ancestor, cut by hand for candlelight: a high crown, a small table, and broad facets that flash in slow, deep pulses rather than white sparkle. For a ring that looks inherited on the day it is given.
The setting
After the stone, the setting decides most of how the ring looks: how the stone sits on the hand, how light enters it, and how secure it stays over decades of daily wear.
Solitaire
A single stone raised on prongs above a simple band. The purest of the styles: it places all the attention on the diamond itself. Works with every stone shape.
Pavé
Small diamonds set closely along the band, creating a continuous glittering surface. Adds brilliance without competing with the centre stone. Beautiful in rose or white gold.
Halo
A ring of smaller stones surrounding the centre diamond. Amplifies the appearance of the main stone, ideal for getting the most visual size from a moderate budget.
Three-stone
Past, present, future: a trio of stones with the centre typically larger. Rich in narrative and meaning, the most sentimental of the classic styles.
Bezel
Metal encircles the entire girdle of the stone, extremely secure and low in profile. The setting of choice for active lifestyles. Clean, architectural, thoroughly modern.
East-west
The stone is set horizontally across the finger rather than vertically. An unexpected, contemporary choice that flatters slender fingers and catches the eye immediately.
A setting of your own
A vanki-style band, a family stone reset, a design remembered from a photograph: if none of these is the one, tell us in a line. It goes onto your commission card, and it is drawn with you, by hand, at the table.
JPG or PNG, up to four photos of 10 MB each. They go with your appointment request.
The four Cs
Every GIA Report gives four measurements: cut, colour, clarity and carat. Three are the house's responsibility before you arrive. The fourth, carat, is yours.
Cut
Excellent, nothing below
The only C decided by human skill, and the one that decides whether a stone seems lit from within. Antique cuts predate the scale and are judged the old way, by eye, against the light.
The GIA cut scale
- Excellent
- Very good
- Good
- Fair
- Poor
Where the house sets it
A simplified section through a round brilliant, with illustrative angles.
Colour
D, E and F only
D is colourless, Z light yellow. The house sets only the top three grades, where a diamond reads as pure white in any light. Past Z, colour becomes the point: fancy yellows, pinks and champagnes are available to commission.
The GIA colour scale
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
Where the house sets it
Illustrative tints, deepened so the difference shows on a screen. Seen loose, face down on white, the steps are subtler.
Clarity
IF and VVS1
Clean not only to the naked eye, but under the loupe a jeweller will one day put to them. At these grades a trained eye at ten times magnification finds nothing, or a pinpoint it has to hunt for.
The GIA clarity scale
- FL
- IF
- VVS1
- VVS2
- VS1
- VS2
- SI1
- SI2
- I1
- I2
- I3
Where the house sets it
Drawn, not photographed: what a gemologist looks for through the loupe.
Carat
The weight the hand asks for
Weight, not size: a 1.00 ct diamond weighs 0.2 grams. An Excellent 0.90 ct faces up larger than a mediocre 1.00 ct, so always put cut before carat. This is the one C we leave to you, and to your budget.
Drawn to scale against each other; the dashed ring is 1.00 ct.
The metal
The band meets the skin every day, for decades. There is no wrong answer; when in doubt, yellow gold has been the choice of South Indian brides for four thousand years.
The budget
The "two months' salary" rule was written by De Beers' advertising agency. It has nothing to do with love, or with the quality of a ring.
Spend what lets you be proud of the ring without strain in the months after. We suggest about 60% to the stone and 40% to the setting and craft: a poorly set stone shows more than an imperfect stone perfectly set.
Two rings that began at this table
The ring designer
Design your ring, in the round
Six questions, asked the way our gemologist asks them, with your ring taking shape in 3D as you answer. About two minutes; nothing to sign up for.
- Stone
- Shape
- Setting
- Weight
- Quality
- Metal
“The best engagement ring is not the most expensive one. It is the one she will never want to take off.”Vummidi Nandagopal Sons
Begin with a conversation
Bring the question. We will help with everything after it.