Hearts & Arrows

For decades the industry hoped the trade would unite around a higher standard for cut. It never did. To this day, no major laboratory issues a grade for Hearts & Arrows. So we hold our own.

The standard is binary. A diamond either is true Hearts & Arrows, or it is not. There is no Quality A, B, C. There is no 1, 2, 3. There is no gradient and no “close enough.” A pattern is either fully and symmetrically resolved, or the diamond falls short of the standard.

That conviction traces to 1997, when Brian Gavin cut the first A CUT ABOVE diamond. A CUT ABOVE was introduced in 1998 and first sold online in August 1999, helping define the superideal category in America. He committed the principles below to print in 2001 — the year he set the standard. The work only expanded from there: through the 2009 research that followed, the Cushion Hearts & Arrows design patent granted in 2011, and the round-brilliant Gavin Effect®, begun in 2016 and granted in 2019. Three United States patents now protect this work, detailed below. For the proportions behind it, see Anatomy of the Round Brilliant.

Six Facets to Form a Single Heart

A complete heart is not a single reflection. Each of the eight hearts is built from six different facets working together: two main pavilion facets, two lower-girdle facets, and two upper-girdle facets that finish and square off the “rabbit ears” at the base of the heart.

The lower-girdle facets are what separate the arrowhead above from the heart below — a separation created purely by the angle difference between the mains and the lower girdles. If physical symmetry is off even slightly, the optical symmetry of the heart is immediately affected.

The Cutting Sequence

Eight main pavilion facets establish the foundation — a clean eight-rayed star. The lower-girdle facets are added and the hearts begin to form. The crown facets bring the arrows into view. Finally the stars and upper girdles are placed, completing the pattern. The eight main pavilion facets do the heavy lifting; everything else refines and completes their work.

Engineered for Light, Verified by the Hearts

The proportions are not chosen for brilliance alone. Every measurement we use to maximize light performance is held to a second, simultaneous requirement: the finished diamond must also resolve into perfect Hearts & Arrows. These are not separate goals to be balanced against one another — they are engineered together.

A set of proportions that returns light beautifully but cannot produce a true pattern is not the target; neither is a crisp pattern achieved at the expense of performance. The measurements matter because they were derived to deliver both at once. That is why the numbers are as important as the pattern they create — and why the hearts serve as the final proof that the light performance was achieved the right way.

The arrows are seductive, but they can mislead. Because fewer facets must align to render the arrows, small errors can be hidden in the arrow view. The hearts cannot hide anything. So many more facet reflections must overlap precisely to complete each heart that the smallest inconsistency shows at once. This is why we insist on the hearts view.

Hearts Criteria

Eight equal, uniform, symmetrical hearts. Each heart distinctly separated from the arrowhead above it. No splits, or only slight and uniform splits, at the ends of the hearts. Throughout: uniformity and balance.

Arrows Criteria

Eight arrows, each clearly visible with both a shaft and an arrowhead. All eight shafts and heads straight and correctly positioned. Every arrow point meeting the girdle. Again: uniformity and balance.

A diamond can be cut to ideal proportions and earn AGS Ideal® 0 — the top of the 0–10 AGS light performance scale — and still fail to show a crisp, true Hearts & Arrows pattern. Ideal proportions are the price of admission, not the finish line. To form the pattern, a diamond must also have super symmetry, where every angle and every facet is precise.

Optical symmetry is not meet-point symmetry. Meet-point symmetry — how neatly facet junctions align — is what laboratories grade. Optical symmetry concerns physical symmetry across the X, Y and Z axes, and it is what governs how the diamond actually performs. The two are often confused, and they are not the same thing.

Machine precision is not optical perfection. Scanners such as Sarin and OGI measure geometry to fine tolerances, yet a diamond can measure beautifully and still underperform. Like a drumhead tensioned to perfect mathematical symmetry that produces a duller tone, a diamond optimized only for the numbers can lose the very performance the numbers were meant to predict.

The quiet enemy is azimuthal shift — the rotational misalignment of facets around the diamond. Even a slight shift mis-shapes the hearts and pulls the arrowheads out of position. The hearts view reveals it at a glance, long before any report would.

The Variables a Cutter Must Hold True

Optical symmetry comes down to the precise orientation of every facet. The diagrams below show the variables that must be controlled — correct indexing, slope angle and azimuth — and then the effect of yaw, the rotational tilt that throws a facet out of true. A deviation in any one of them, on any single facet, is exactly what the hearts expose.

It is worth noting how the landscape has changed. The AGS Laboratory no longer operates as a separate lab: GIA acquired AGS Laboratories' intellectual property in 2022, including the light performance and ray-tracing research behind AGS Ideal® 0, and AGS Ideal® Reports are now issued by GIA. Even so, most fine diamonds carry only a standard GIA grading report, which grades proportions and finish but does not grade light performance or Hearts & Arrows. That gap is where our own analysis — including ASET® imaging — begins.

Why So Few Are Cut This Way

A true Hearts & Arrows diamond can absolutely be a collector's stone. The reason so few exist is economic, not technical. Diamond rough is extremely expensive, so most manufacturers cut to maximize weight and recovery, protecting their margin by preserving every possible carat. Cutting for true optical performance means doing the opposite: deliberately giving up weight to reach the exact angles and symmetry the pattern demands.

We make the other choice. Beauty before yield. A stone may finish lighter than it could have been, but it performs the way a diamond should.

Collection-Scale Stones, Cut for Performance

This is not a small-stone discipline. The Brian Gavin and Brian Gavin Signature collections include collection-scale diamonds cut to the superideal standard — three- and five-carat rounds, cushions and other cuts among them. They cost more than comparable stones cut for weight retention, and that premium is the point: it reflects the carats given up, and the performance gained, in pursuit of the finest possible diamond.

Recutting to the Standard

Many exceptional stones already exist that were never cut to their full potential. For an owner — or someone seeking to acquire such a stone — who wants it brought fully into the superideal category and optimized for the best light return its material will allow, we can recut it through our cutting services. With most diamonds carrying only a standard GIA report, this is exactly the light performance expertise a report alone cannot provide.