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Weingarten carries all three super squares, with most sales divided equally between the Hope and the Jubilee—both of which he sees as consummate in craftsmanship and beauty. “There is no difference when it comes to performance,” he says. “The only difference is in girdle outline. The Jubilee has straight edges and the Hope has slightly curved ones.”

No super square introduced so far is strictly four-sided like a princess cut. All could be classified as modified squares or, in some cases, cushions because they have cut corners. When the corners are covered with prongs in a mounting, however, most look square—except for the Regent, which has wider corners than either of its competitors and starts to resemble a cushion. Some cutters are also experimenting with octagonal hearts and arrows, but Cary Horowitz of Horowitz & Atlass, abandoned the idea. “It doesn’t make much sense to design a super ideal cut octagon because the stone looks round from a distance,” he says.

True to its identity as a super ideal cut, says gemological researcher Michael Cowing, “the hearts and arrows square retains an allegiance to proportions in the round recommended by pioneering cutters Marcel Tolkowsky and Bostonian Henry Morse. On the square diamond's pavilion, that includes crucial pavilion angles close to 41 degrees. Adherence to the best of Morse and Tolkowsky’s thinking, combined with modern improvements, has resulted in a square, optically symmetrical ideal cut.”

Super squares could eventually challenge the soaring dominance of the princess cut. And they will do so for four reasons. First, cut corners make super squares more durable than princess cuts with their pointed, vulnerable corners. Second, super squares have better spread than the typical bottom-heavy princess. For example, a 0.80 carat hearts and arrows square looks as big as a typical one carat princess, because it has a similar diameter.

Third, the optical symmetry (the well-defined, symmetrical hearts and arrows patterns) of a super square predicts high amounts of brilliance. And it’s brilliance of the best kind—what the trade has taken to calling “contrast brilliance,” a term for the side-by-side and alternating reflections of white light and darkness due to contrast in the illumination such as that caused by obstruction of light by the viewer. “Do not,” Cowing warns, “confuse these dynamic and dramatic reflections with the dead zones of blackness, or extinction, caused by poor diamond cutting with improper proportions.”

Fourth, super squares breathe fire when viewed in lighting conducive to this famed aspect of diamond beauty. "Many modern round brilliants are deficient in the broad flashes of spectrum color that make old mine and old European cuts so appealing. Vintage rounds and cushions have larger mains, which result in broader flashes of fire,” says Cowing. “In pursuit of sparkle, halves have been lengthened too far in many modern cuts with consequent thinning of the mains. Reduced mains mean reduced firepower. To restore broad-flash fire takes proper angles and the optical symmetry resulting from exact facet alignment. Whether round or square, super ideal cuts have brought fire back into the equation of diamond beauty.”

Jubilee square hearts & arrows diamond courtesy of Horowitz & Atlass