Cleveland Designer Megan Piccione Debuts Diamond Jewelry at the Met Gala

A fancy yellow diamond can look modern on a red carpet, yet its strongest language is often borrowed from the vaults. Megan Piccione’s Met Gala debut gave Lauren Wasser exactly that kind of lesson, pairing Cleveland-made high jewelry with the sort of stone cuts and settings collectors recognize from earlier eras, from Art Deco clarity to mid-century warmth.

Wasser wore a diamond necklace centered on an 8.09-carat fancy yellow diamond framed by a 2.20-carat diamond halo, plus an 18-karat yellow gold necklace set with a 12.72-carat step-cut marquise diamond, another necklace carrying 31 carats of fancy yellow and white diamonds, and an 18-karat yellow gold Twist ring with a 4.02-carat emerald-cut diamond. For anyone hunting vintage pieces, those details matter: the halo setting recalls the luminous framing of Belle Époque and Art Deco jewels, while the step-cut and emerald-cut stones privilege architecture over sparkle, the way 1930s and 1940s design often did. The layered necklace approach also echoes the stacked, display-case opulence of later high jewelry, when one strong center stone was often amplified by a second and third line of diamonds.

That is what made Piccione’s work feel so legible to collectors. The vocabulary was not precious only because of carat weight, though those numbers were substantial; it was precious because the design choices carried a historical pulse. Yellow gold softens the entire composition and gives the diamonds a warmer register than platinum would have. The combination of fancy yellow and white diamonds, meanwhile, is the kind of contrast that vintage buyers often find in signed pieces from houses that knew how to balance boldness with restraint. If a similar look appears in an estate case, the clues to watch are a clean geometric cut, a halo that seems to halo the light rather than hide the center stone, and enough layering to suggest the wearer built the story necklace by necklace.

The setting unfolded on a Met Gala stage built for symbolism. The 2026 gala took place on May 4 and supported the Costume Institute, whose annual benefit funds exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and operations at The Met. The companion exhibition, Costume Art, opened May 10 in the museum’s nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries, under the dress code Fashion Is Art. Lauren Wasser, a model and activist who had both legs amputated after toxic shock syndrome, was attending her first Met Gala, and Piccione, named one of Jewelers of America’s 20 Under 40 in 2024, was introducing her couture-level jewels to the red carpet for the first time.

In a season crowded with headline-making stones, including Rihanna’s Glenn Spiro earrings with 51.90 carats of fancy brown-yellow diamonds, Piccione’s showings stood out for a collector’s reason: they translated the red carpet into a vocabulary of eras, cuts and settings that can still be searched for, identified and worn again.