Friends, I want to take you on a small tour of one of my favorite corners of the diamond world: fancy color. And specifically, the slightly underground, slightly unfashionable, totally captivating world of orange diamonds. We have a pair of them set in 18K rose gold in a piece I call the Izzy β and they have changed the way I look at my entire stud collection.
What "Fancy Color" Actually Means
White diamonds are graded on the GIA scale from D (colorless) to Z (faintly yellow or brown). Once a stone is more saturated than Z β once the color is the point of the stone, not a deduction from it β the GIA stops grading on the colorless scale and switches to the Fancy Color scale. Faint, Very Light, Light, Fancy Light, Fancy, Fancy Intense, Fancy Vivid, Fancy Deep, Fancy Dark.
The descriptors are slightly clinical, but the differences are huge. A "Fancy Light" yellow diamond is buttery and pretty. A "Fancy Vivid Yellow" is full canary. The same scale applies to pinks, blues, greens, browns ("champagne"), and β our subject today β oranges.
The Story of Orange
Pure orange diamonds are among the rarest of the rare. Most "orange" diamonds are actually orange-yellow or brownish-orange. A pure, vivid orange β sometimes called "fire orange" or "pumpkin diamond" β has been seen in only a handful of stones in the entire modern grading record. The famous Pumpkin Diamond is a 5.54-carat Fancy Vivid Orange that Halle Berry wore to the Oscars. There have been roughly enough significant pure-orange diamonds catalogued to fit on a small dinner napkin.
The Izzy earrings use vivid fancy orange diamonds, and the color is genuinely glorious β somewhere between a ripe apricot and a Mediterranean sunset. They are not pure-pure orange (those are basically unobtainable at any sensible budget), but they are unmistakably orange, and seeing them next to white diamonds for the first time will, I promise, slightly rearrange your aesthetic priorities.
Katura's Approach
18K rose gold was the only correct setting for these. Yellow gold would have made the diamonds look orange-y in a way that flattened them. White metals would have made the orange look anemic. Rose gold, with its warm copper tone, sits in conversation with the orange β neither competes nor disappears. The pair becomes a single warm idea: a sunset on the ear.
The Izzy form itself is a slim stud β let the color do the work. Anything more elaborate would have read as costume jewelry, which fancy color diamonds emphatically are not.
How to Live With Fancy Color
I'll be honest: fancy color diamonds attract questions. People will stop you. People will ask if you've never met them before. Be ready to enjoy this β it's part of the deal.
What to wear them with: the wardrobe rule for orange-and-rose is "complementary or neutral." Cream silk, navy, deep green, and chocolate brown all look extraordinary against an orange diamond. Avoid pure red (the orange recedes) and pure pink (everything competes). White and ivory are easy and excellent.
Care, Briefly
Diamonds are diamonds, even colored ones β Mohs 10, hard as anything on earth. Soap, water, soft toothbrush, microfiber dry. The settings, however, are slimmer than a typical stud setting because the design is intentionally minimal. Bring them in once a year for a prong check.
One important note: natural fancy color diamonds should always come with a GIA color origin report. The report distinguishes natural color from treated color. Treated orange diamonds exist; they are typically irradiated or lab-grown, both of which are valid technologies but should be priced accordingly. The Izzy earrings use natural-origin fancy color stones, and we provide the GIA paperwork. Don't ever buy a fancy color diamond without it.
Who Wears Orange Diamonds
The fancy color collector is one of my favorite kinds of jewelry person. She is past the "what is everyone else wearing?" phase. She has owned the white studs already; she has owned the pearls; she has done the engagement ring. Now she's curious. She wants something with a passport.
Orange specifically tends to attract slightly fearless personalities β the women who pick up a vintage HermΓ¨s scarf with seven colors on it and tie it around their handbag without thinking. If that's you, you already know whether the Izzy earrings are calling your name.
Wear them with abandon, friends. Color belongs to grown-ups.
β Katura