Marquise Engagement Rings: The 2026 Bespoke Guide

There is something quietly radical about choosing a marquise diamond for an engagement ring. In a world where round brilliants account for the majority of stones sold, the marquise - with its tapered points, its boat-like silhouette, its elongated drama - is a deliberate choice. It says something about the person wearing it. And in 2026, more people are making that choice than at any point in the last three decades.

Vogue UK named the marquise one of the defining engagement ring trends of the year. Glamour UK listed it among the top cuts for 2026. And from where I sit as a designer - working through enquiries, drawing up briefs, having conversations with people who are thinking seriously about what they want on their finger for the rest of their lives - the shift is real. The marquise is back. But to understand why, it helps to understand where it came from.

What Is a Marquise Cut Diamond?

The marquise cut is an elongated brilliant cut with two pointed ends and a curved body. From above, it resembles a slim ellipse drawn to sharp tips at each end - like the hull of a vessel, or a leaf, or the outline of an eye. Its length-to-width ratio typically falls between 1.75:1 and 2.15:1, though the ideal proportions depend on the setting and the wearer's hand. Most marquise diamonds are cut with 58 facets, giving them excellent fire and brilliance - more than people often expect from a shape they associate with a different era.

The name comes from the French marquis - a title of nobility just below duke - and the cut was historically associated with aristocratic display. But its roots go further back than the French court, and it is those deeper roots that make it particularly resonant for me.

A Shape With Ancient Roots

Long before European cutters gave the marquise its name, elongated and pointed stone forms appeared throughout Persian and Mughal jewellery. Craftsmen working across the great courts of Iran, India, and Central Asia prized slender, lance-shaped stones for their ability to catch light at acute angles and draw the eye along the length of a piece rather than simply reflecting back from a single central flash. The navette - French for “little boat,” a term used interchangeably with marquise - turns up in jewellery spanning centuries and continents.

I find this lineage worth noting, because Silux London draws deeply from that tradition - from the geometric intelligence and material richness of Persian goldsmithing. The Firouzeh collection reflects that heritage directly. The marquise, when I work with it, does not feel like a fashion revival. It feels like a homecoming.

Why the Marquise Is Having a Moment in 2026

The current revival is partly a reaction to uniformity. The round brilliant dominated engagement ring culture for so long - and the oval brilliant followed it as the fashionable alternative for most of the 2010s - that a generation of buyers is now looking for something with more individuality. The marquise delivers that. Its silhouette is immediately distinctive. It is not trying to be subtle.

But trend alone does not explain everything. There is also a growing appetite in the UK bespoke market for cuts that reward handcrafted settings - shapes that look extraordinary in solitaire mountings with tapered bands, or in east-west orientations, or paired with unusual side stones. The marquise has a relationship with its setting that a round brilliant does not. It demands design consideration. Which is, frankly, the right kind of challenge for a bespoke commission.

If you are comparing shapes more broadly, my guide on oval vs round diamonds covers the adjacent territory and may help frame your thinking before you come to a decision.

The Advantages of a Marquise Engagement Ring

Elongated Elegance on the Finger

Set with the stone running along the length of the finger - as is traditional - a marquise creates a strongly elongating effect. It draws the eye up the hand, making the finger appear longer and more slender than a round or cushion stone of the same carat weight would. For wearers who want a stone that flatters the hand as part of its design intent, this is a genuine practical advantage, not simply an aesthetic one.

Exceptional Visual Size for the Carat Weight

The marquise cut has one of the largest surface areas of any diamond cut relative to its carat weight. A 1.00ct marquise will appear visually larger than a 1.00ct round brilliant. This is because the elongated outline spreads the same mass across a greater face-up area. For buyers who want to maximise the visual impact of a stone while managing cost, the marquise is one of the most efficient choices available. It is not a compromise - it is geometry working in your favour.

Dramatic Presence Without Excess

There is a category of jewellery that announces itself before you have finished looking at it - pieces where the drama is in the form, not the bulk. The marquise belongs there. A well-cut stone in an elegant solitaire does not need surrounding diamonds or elaborate metalwork to make a statement. The silhouette does the work. This restraint, paradoxically, is what gives it presence.

What to Consider When Choosing a Marquise Setting

Protecting the Points

The pointed ends of a marquise diamond are its most defining feature - and its most vulnerable. Those tips are thinner than the rest of the stone and can chip or abrade if left exposed in a poorly designed setting. A well-made bespoke marquise ring will always address this directly, either with V-shaped prongs at each point (the traditional solution and my preference), or with a bezel that wraps and protects the full outline. This is not a concern to be alarmed by - it is simply a design consideration, and one that skilled craftsmanship handles without compromising the stone's presence.

V-shaped prongs protecting the marquise points

The Bowtie Effect

Most elongated brilliant cuts - marquise, oval, pear - exhibit what cutters call a bowtie: a dark shadow across the centre of the stone that resembles a bow tie in silhouette. In a poorly cut stone, this can be distracting. In a well-cut stone, it is barely visible and adds a subtle depth to the stone's character rather than a flaw. When I source marquise diamonds for bespoke commissions, I look at each stone in person (or via high-quality video) to assess bowtie visibility before recommending it. This is something a general retailer cannot do; it is one of the advantages of working with a designer directly.

Orientation: Classic or East-West

A marquise set lengthways along the finger is classic and elongating. But the east-west orientation - rotated ninety degrees, so the stone runs across the finger - is having its own moment in 2026, offering a more architectural and unconventional look. It is a bolder choice, and one that particularly suits the bespoke approach because the band, the prong placement, and the proportions all need to be considered differently. Both orientations are things I design and make regularly, and I am happy to sketch both during a consultation so you can compare them directly.

Classic (lengthways) vs east-west orientation

Bespoke Marquise Rings at Silux London

When someone comes to me wanting a marquise engagement ring, the conversation starts with the stone - its length-to-width ratio, its depth, its cut quality - but it quickly moves to the setting, because the marquise is one of those cuts where the mount and the stone are genuinely in dialogue with each other. The wrong setting diminishes a beautiful stone. The right setting makes the whole piece look inevitable.

My approach draws on both my training at the School of Jewellery in Birmingham and the aesthetic traditions I grew up with in Iran - where elongated forms, architectural precision, and richly worked metal have been part of the jewellery vocabulary for thousands of years. A marquise ring designed at Silux London is not simply a stone dropped into a standard solitaire. It is a piece built around that specific stone, for that specific person, to be worn for a lifetime.

I work with ethically sourced natural diamonds and a range of precious metals - 18ct yellow, white, and rose gold, and platinum. Every commission includes a 3D-rendered preview before any metal is cast, so you know exactly what you are getting before the work begins. If you are wondering about investment and pricing, my guide on how much bespoke jewellery costs covers the detail honestly.

Hamed Arab is a Birmingham-based jewellery designer and qualified goldsmith. He is a three-time Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council Award winner and founder of Silux London, a British fine jewellery brand drawing on Persian heritage and contemporary design.