Guide to how we buy Diamonds

Why Cut Reigns Supreme

Cut is the only C authored by human hand. It is not shape, but science. The precision of proportions, symmetry and polish dictates whether light enters, dances, and returns to the eye or simply leaks away into darkness. A masterful cut breathes life into stone.

The Windsor Standard of Cut

We adhere to the most rigorous international grading, yet we look beyond it:

• Ideal / Excellent: Perfectly aligned facets, total light return, explosive brilliance. The Windsor benchmark.
• Very Good: A whisper away from ideal, with minor compromises that retain remarkable fire.
• Good and below: Where brilliance begins to fade. These never become a Windsor Diamond.

The Spectrum of Light

Color is graded on a scale from D (absolute colorless) to Z (light tint). The less color, the more light passes unhindered. True colorlessness is nature's rarest achievement.

Understanding the Grades

• D-F (Colorless): The purest river of light. Exceptionally rare, for the connoisseur who seeks perfection.
• G-J (Near-Colorless): The perfect harmony of rarity and value. Appears colorless to the unaided eye, with breathtaking presence.
• K and beyond (Faint Tint): A warm glow emerges. Beautiful in rose and yellow gold, but distinct from the Windsor standard.

What Clarity Truly Means

Clarity is the story of a diamond's birth. Tiny internal inclusions and surface features, formed deep within the earth over billions of years, are nature's signature. True purity allows light to travel without interruption.

The Scale of Purity

• FL / IF (Flawless / Internally Flawless): No trace of inclusions under 10x magnification. A miracle of nature.
• VVS1 - VVS2 (Very, Very Slightly Included): Inclusions are a secret, detectable only by an expert under magnification.
• VS1 - VS2 (Very Slightly Included): Minute inclusions, invisible to the naked eye, allowing uncompromised brilliance.
• SI and below: Where inclusions begin to whisper visibly. At Windsor, we tread with extreme discernment here.

Beyond Weight

Carat is a measure of weight, not size. Yet presence is everything. Two diamonds of identical weight can possess entirely different visages, dictated by the mastery of their cut.

The Illusion of Size

A poorly cut deep stone can hide its weight in its belly, appearing small. A Windsor Ideal cut spreads its beauty horizontally, maximizing its face-up presence. This is why a superbly cut 0.90-carat Windsor diamond can outshine a mediocre 1.00-carat stone.