When Zendaya stepped onto the Golden Globes red carpet in January, the Bulgari ambassador was bedecked out in — what else? — Bulgari jewels, including a massive diamond and 31-carat tourmaline necklace. But it was the one non-Bulgari piece of jewelry she wore that caught all the attention: an east-west cushion cut diamond engagement ring, courtesy of jeweler Jessica McCormack.
Zendaya, who has since confirmed her engagement to boyfriend and “Spider-Man” co-star Tom Holland, is far from the only celebrity to garner headlines and speculation for her engagement ring. Selena Gomez’s December Instagram post announcing her engagement to music producer Benny Blanco — and showcasing her marquise diamond engagement ring — garnered 23 million likes. Zoë Kravitz got engaged to Channing Tatum in October 2023 with a cushion cut diamond Jessica McCormack ring and was named the first global ambassador to the London jewelry brand a few months later.
Celebrities have long since fueled consumer culture, with jewelry trends no exception. But social media has given consumers a more intimate window into celebrities’ lives, including their engagement ring choices. And with the rise of fast-paced platforms like TikTok and a growing acceptance of lab-grown diamonds, even the resolutely traditional engagement ring is subject to quickening trend cycles.
“There are just so many influencers and sources setting trends these days,” said diamond industry analyst Paul Zimnisky. “When a celebrity gets engaged and they show their ring off, the distribution of that is so much more [widespread] than it was when you would just have a small handful of fashion media outlets sending out whatever story.”
Recent engagements from Gomez and Zendaya are reflective of today’s appetites for diamond shapes, namely the elongated marquise and east-west setting, which places an elongated cut like an emerald or cushion diamond horizontally on the finger rather than the traditional vertical. But few have set off diamond trends quite like Hailey Bieber.
“When I first started Hera back in 2021, ovals were pretty much all we sold,” said Lauren Boc, founder and CEO of Hera Fine Jewelry. Hailey Bieber’s 2018 engagement to Justin Bieber set a craze for solitaire oval engagement rings, but its resulting ubiquity has since led consumers to look for distinct but similarly elongated cuts, like emerald, radiant or marquise diamonds. “Right now, we’re seeing more diversity in what people are looking for. … We are getting more requests from marquise, for sure. And that didn’t really start with Selena Gomez. It’s ticked up since then, but it was already on its way there.”
Setting a diamond sideways rather than up and down may not seem like such a radical choice. But for an item as conservative as an engagement ring, that small change represents a comparatively large shift.
“East-west and a marquise are totally outside the usual grammar of engagement rings. And engagement rings are supposed to be the linchpin in tradition,” said New York-based jeweler Alexei Hay. “It’s a diamond — the material that is the hardest and least vulnerable to change, right?”
Much of that experimentation can be attributed to the rise of lab-grown diamonds. According to The Knot’s 2025 Real Weddings Study, more than half of couples are buying a lab-grown diamond for their engagement ring, marking a 6% increase from the previous year and the first time in history that lab-grown have outpaced their mined counterparts.
When working with mined diamonds, Boc said, cutters would traditionally prioritize cutting away as little of the rough diamond as possible. However, the relative accessibility of lab-grown diamonds has allowed both cutters and consumers to be more experimental with shapes outside of a reliable round solitaire.
It’s not just rings, but attitudes to marriage as a whole that are shifting. 2023 Pew Research data found a record 25% of 40-year-olds in the U.S. have never been married. And when getting engaged, consumers are questioning far more than just the cut of their diamonds.
“The whole tradition of engagement rings is being overhauled right now, starting with the idea of, ‘Is it just with a man and a woman? Do you need another person, or can you get engaged to yourself?’” said Hay. “There are a lot of people wearing engagement rings as pinky rings, even moving it over to the middle finger. Think about what that represents.”
Celebrities are taking part in those trends, as well. In 2024, following her separation from movie producer Sebastian Bear-McClard, Emily Ratajkowski repurposed her toi-et-moi-style engagement ring into a set of “divorce rings.” After announcing her pregnancy in 2024, Hailey Bieber unveiled a new oval diamond engagement ring, moving her original diamond to a new pinky ring setting.
Engagement rings’ influence on the diamond industry has decreased over the years. While engagement rings once accounted for more than 40% of consumer diamond sales, Zimnisky said they now command about one-third of the market. But chatter around engagement rings, including those of celebrities, has kept what is a relatively small industry in the zeitgeist.
“I can’t believe how much mainstream media coverage diamonds still get,” said Zimnisky. “It’s an $80 billion industry. So it’s not small, but it’s really not that big.” By comparison, the global luxury fashion market was valued at $123 billion in 2024.
Though rising in popularity in engagement rings, lab-grown diamonds still represent only 20% of the diamond market, and the perceived status of natural diamonds may be hard to shake. But Boc believes a high-profile celebrity adopting a lab-grown diamond engagement ring could change the game.
“We just started selling solar-powered lab-grown diamonds. And I could absolutely see a celebrity choosing one of those if they have values around things like sustainability,” she said. “It would be so powerful to get rid of any feelings that lab-grown diamonds are less ‘special.’”
Whether they’re mined or lab-grown, few consumers can aspire to the megawatt diamonds boasted by most celebrities. But famous engagement rings remain such a fixation in part because they may be more relatable than any other piece of celebrity jewelry.
“Engagement rings are, for most people, their only really expensive, really luxurious jewelry purchase,” said Boc. “Diamonds are beautiful. Jewelry is beautiful. And maybe it’s easier to see yourself wearing an engagement ring than to see yourself wearing a giant Bulgari diamond necklace.”
Product images courtesy of Hera Fine Jewelry.
