2016 Diamond Trends

With engagement season in full swing, many people will be buying diamonds for the first time in their life over the next few months. The coming year is expected to hold significant changes in the diamond market, with changes in everything from pricing to style. These are four of our prediction for upcoming 2016 diamond trends.

Lower Diamond Prices

If you have been researching, considering buying a diamond, or simply reading the news, it is no secret that the diamond market is experiencing noteworthy highs and lows this year. On the one hand, De Beers is closing the Snap Lake Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories due to market softness; on the other, the most recent Christie’s gem auction in Hong Kong sold several record-breaking stones. The 12.03-carat blue diamond known as “the Blue Moon of Josephine” sold for $48.4 million.

However, the jaw-dropping prices for large-carat trophy diamonds will not make much of a difference to average people buying diamonds to set in engagement rings, pendants, or earrings. One carat diamonds (both rough and polished) have dropped in price significantly throughout 2015. This is good news for those planning to buy diamonds in 2016, because retail prices will show a decrease as well.

More Fancy Cuts

There is no doubt that the round brilliant cut will continue to be the most popular diamond shape. The other diamond cuts have a long way to go before catching up, with round diamonds representing approximately 75% of diamonds sold. Still, fancy cut diamonds – which is, every diamond shape except for round – are steadily gaining in popularity and representing a larger portion of all sold diamonds. Radiant and oval cut diamonds, for example, both have a brilliant faceting pattern like a round cut but are less conventional, elongated shapes.

Diamond…Downgrades?

This shouldn’t make any sense, with another one of our diamond trends being a price decrease. Usually when diamond prices are down, people are more likely to buy larger pieces of diamond jewelry to capitalize on the trend. Nonetheless, a growing trend has been for people with larger, more high-profile rings to get a ring downgrade.

By “high-profile”, we don’t mean an engagement ring owned by a public figure like Amal Clooney, though she did get a ring downgrade this year. Rather, high-profile refers to how high the ring sits on the finger. Massive prong-set solitaire rings are a good example of the high-profile style. Because they snag and get caught on things easily, high-profile engagement rings are prone to damage. This leads many people to choose a ring downgrade, often opting for a simple wedding band for everyday use.