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Nina Runsdorf photo

A flower ring with rough cut diamonds by Nina Runsdorf

Ice diamonds

Cloudy, heavily-included ice diamonds no longer considered ugly ducklings

Icy, cloudy, rough, industrial, or just plain bort – call them what you will, diamonds previously off the charts in terms of gem-quality status are now making the grade in fine jewelry designs.

Fawaz Gruosi, head of Geneva-based de Grisogono, uses “icy diamonds” in his current premium collections, often mixing them with high-quality ruby and emerald. Gruosi is famous for championing the use of black diamonds in the 1990s, which snowballed into what is still a major trend. “I thought the black diamond was sexy, elegant and mysterious, and I wanted to use it because nobody had done it before,” he says. “I started using icy diamonds for the same reason. I thought the market needed something new.”

Icy diamonds are basically heavily included diamonds – they contain imperfections that render them more opaque than transparent, gem quality diamonds. Despite their irregularities, however, they have a beauty of their own. “The inclusions diffuse the light in a certain way that gives the stones a beautiful frosty glow,” says Gruosi.

New York designer Nina Runsdorf calls them cloudy diamonds, and uses them with rough diamonds and slice diamonds (slices cut from bort, irregular-shaped gem-quality or dark, imperfectly formed/crystallized industrial diamonds). “People love the idea of these organic diamonds because they are understated, yet have a very strong presence,” says Runsdorf. “My fascination with them stems from the fact that diamonds are the strongest natural stone, used for industrial purposes as well as for precious jewelry.”

Todd Reed, a Boulder, Colo., designer, was one of the first to use rough diamonds a few years ago, and it remains his specialty. His inspiration grew out of his indignation at an advertising campaign. “It was a response to the slogan: ‘She’ll like you at a half carat, but she’ll love you at a carat.’ Diamonds were being marketed as status symbols rather than as objects of beauty,” he says.

Reed concluded the best way to present diamonds that were in their purest – and in his mind, most beautiful – form was as rough; diamonds untouched by man. “The shapes are amazing, the colors are amazing, the textures are amazing,” says Reed. “And they’re something new. It’s only a matter of time before a woman realizes she’s not the only one with two-carat diamond ear studs, and she’ll be looking for something that is different, yet still retains the prestige of diamonds.” 

Reed is not alone. De Beers introduced a collection two years ago using rough, random-cut and off-color diamonds. The Talisman collection, with pieces ranging from $700 to $1-million U.S., is set heavily with rough diamonds (mainly octahedrons, and some macles) and is so-named because from ancient times through to the renaissance, unpolished diamonds, were mythical talismans for protection, good luck and strength.