Diane Kruger dazzled when she waltzed into the Met Gala this previous September. The German actress and mannequin arrived in a lime inexperienced robe with a practice and cut-outs that confirmed off her abs, searing bright-pink eyeshadow and a gargantuan engagement ring with a square-cut diamond as large because the Ritz.
After years of subtler sparklers and candy, semiprecious stones, Kruger’s show-stopping rock threw down a gauntlet.
Brides — weary of COVID-era austerity and warning — are embracing the large, daring and sensible. And what higher option to announce it than with a flashy ring?

“It’s a joyful factor, it’s a second of celebration,” says Sam Broekema, editor-in-chief on the Pure Diamond Council’s on-line platform, Solely Pure Diamonds. He applauds the development towards extra exuberant, extra further jewels — from pear-shaped gems, à la Liz Taylor, to brightly hued stones, which improve the celebratory vibe.
“Extra persons are getting engaged and getting married this yr than the yr earlier than,” Broekema continues. “There are such a lot of folks on this market, folks wish to set themselves aside — what makes their ring totally different, what makes their wedding ceremony totally different, what makes their engagement second totally different?”
As for “totally different,” look no additional than the “twin flames” that rapper Machine Gun Kelly designed for actress Megan Fox. The ring incorporates two giant pear-shaped gems representing every of their birthstones — a diamond for him, an emerald for her — set on a band of thorns. (It supposedly hurts to take off; “Love is ache,” 32-year-old MGK instructed Vogue.)

“It’s a positively edgy type,” says Scott Udell, vice chairman of London Jewelers. “It takes a sure girl to step out of the standard diamond look. However we do a number of two-stone diamond rings, and for the actually distinctive, avant-garde kind of girl, we do get requests for a diamond and a sapphire, or a diamond and a ruby — one thing of that nature.”
Udell, nevertheless, says that much more conventional brides wish to stand out, with increasingly girls choosing blended metals (like platinum for the pinnacle and rose or yellow gold for the shoulders and shank) or requesting lengthy stones, similar to “To All of the Boys” star Lana Condor’s oval stone set off by smaller diamonds down the aspect.

“Oval cuts, emerald cuts, elongated cushion cuts, elongated radiant cuts are very, very on-trend proper now,” he notes. “Clearly, a few of these have crossed over to grow to be timeless, however we’ve got a number of girls coming in saying, ‘The longer the stone, the higher.’ It simply reveals higher on the finger, and it seems larger as effectively.”
Or you possibly can go for a traditional minimize in a resplendent coloured diamond, like Jennifer Lopez’s sensible 8.5-carat inexperienced rock, which her second-time fiancé Ben Affleck gave her final month.

“That’s the following large development,” Broekema says of coloured diamonds, whether or not inexperienced, pink, blue or violet. “They’re extraordinarily uncommon, due to their chemical make-up and the way they’re made. While you uncover the science behind them, you are feeling such as you’re a part of a chunk of historical past.”
Plus, he provides, “If there’s one factor that working style has taught me is that folks love coloration — it makes you content.” And in the long run, that’s what an engagement ring ought to do.