Diamond Zone

Purchased my ring online from Diamond Zone. Arrived with a few minor issues but worked with Ilya, who was a great communicator, and resolved everything satisfactorily. Would definitely recommend.

I went to Diamond Zone with a marquis-​cut diamond that had been in my family for 3 generations; It looked a little outdated, so I wanted to create a custom setting for it. Working with Ilya was a true pleasure; he took all my ideas, and improved upon them. He is very responsive and willing to draw sketches, then CAD engineering designs, then CAD mockups, making changes and improvements with every step. The Engagement Ring came out more beautiful than I could’ve imagined and I’m excited to work with him on the wedding bands. I cannot recommend him enough!

Just received the engagement ring Ilya helped me to design and craft. Without question the piece is handsome; I’m not a jeweler but I’m quite pleased with the design.
While I was very happy with our early interactions, matters became quite vexed at the end. I received the ring over a week later than the deadline Ilya had set, and had remained unresponsive to my messages through Custom Made as the date slipped past. Instead, I was forced to call his shop for information and to get the ring shipped. The lost time cost me plane tickets and a romantic engagement story. In the end I’m not certain it was worth commissioning the piece — I certainly will not be a repeat customer.

Diamond Zone is absolutely awful to work with. My fiancé and I visited the store in summer of 2010, and decided this was the place for us because of their vintage collection and wholesale prices. How wrong we were. We purchased a ring through their website in March 2011. It is now July 2011, 3 ½ months later — and I still do not have the ring. We were so excited to get engaged, and chose a setting and asked for a gemstone as the center stone, and paid for both. Ilya was not willing to do the work necessary to find the center stone we paid him for, and we waited for 6 weeks while he hemmed and hawed and avoided fulfilling the order. Then Ilya FINALLY sent it without resizing the ring — wasting 6 weeks of time. It was a 6.5, I wear a 4.5 and was forced to put yarn, YARN on my engagement ring for a week. I brought it to a local jeweler to size it, and was told the ring was in very bad shape and it would cost at least $ 400 to reset the stones on the band and reprong the ring after the sizing. That is more than ¾ the cost of the whole ring! Ilya didn’t believe us when we told him, and thought it was just a jeweler looking to make money. But, the local jeweler was right, we returned it to them, and now DiamondZone has had the ring for 2 months. We have to contact Ilya multiple times to get any response just to learn that they can’t fix it properly, prongs are broken, stones are falling out — and yet they expect me to accept this faulty ring eventually. This has been a total nightmare. An engagement ring is very important, and they have no respect for our time or money. DiamondZone sold us a defective product, and is holding it and our money hostage. I will NEVER EVER buy anything from them again. If this is not resolved soon, I will consider suing them.

I needed to get some jewelery repaired. I was a bit worried about the service I might get in Jewelers Row. I Unilocaled the jewelers in the area on my phone. I went into one of the street level stores. I had to wait quite a while to get some help. Then, it seemed like they really did not want to deal with the repair. Then, I walked over to Diamond Zone. Ilya was awesome! He answered all my detailed questions. He really seemed to take my concerns and questions seriously. The repair was perfect!!! I will definitely keep them in mind in the future.

Ilya is fantastic. We ended up buying my engagement ring here after exhaustive searches, both in Chicago and online. Ilya was responsive, hard-​working, knowledgeable and honest. He’ll give you a realistic breakdown on cost, and we ended up paying significantly less with Ilya than at another jeweler that I had started with. We were also treated much more nicely.
If you want a fancy retail environment, be aware that you’re paying for the nice location and ambiance. Diamond Zone is a no-​frills business — actually, they are wholesalers — which really shows in their pricing. My suggestion is to go around to the fancy jewelers to try on styles and get a specific idea of what you want, then bring photos to Diamond Zone for an actual purchase.