Usually round in appearance, a modern brilliant cut is made up of 58 facets – a mix of star, kite, upper girdle, lower girdle and pavilion facets. This diamond cut was created by Marcel Tolkowsky in 1919 using a mathematical formulae to ensure maximum light is refracted from the stone. Expert cutters balance the proportions of the facets with the shape of the original stone in order to create the best cut, losing the least amount of the original stone — a fine art.