You’ll hear JCK editor-in-chief Victoria Gomelsky and news director Rob Bates talk about what was hot at the Tucson gem shows, and the insights Victoria gleaned as she followed several designers on their searches through the shows. Rob discusses some ongoing diamond supply news, including the ongoing negotiations between De Beers and Botswana, and the possibility of changes to sanctions on Russian diamonds. They also discuss Chat GPT, which people in the jewelry industry—including Rob himself—have started to experiment with.

Show Notes

02:25 Thoughts on Tucson gem shows

12:35 Diamond market news

20:40 Testing out Chat GPT

Episode Credits

Hosts: Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky

Producer and engineer: Natalie Chomet

Show Recap

Gem Shows Shine Through Cloudy Economy

Victoria notes that those shows depend so much on how the fourth quarter went for retailers: if the holiday went well, and if they needed to restock for their upcoming collections. Many current economic uncertainties also affected this: Everything from the specter of recession, to inflation, to the war in Ukraine. Despite all the looming questions, Victoria reported that Tucson was a great set of shows.

At the high end, despite price increase of 20-30% across the board, demand was still very steady. Victoria spoke with many people who reported having record shows. Dealers explained this was, in part, a reflection of gems’ longtime reputation as a reliable way to store wealth. During times of economic uncertainty, the wealthy may opt to buy gems as a hedge against inflation. And when the economy is booming, people are in good moods, and the up goes the demand for colorful jewels—but for a very different reason. So, there are diverse economic circumstances when gems can fare very well.

What Designers Looked For

Victoria observed that there were many of designers at the show this year. Teams from many of the French houses (Louis Vuitton, Boucheron, Tiffany & Co., and Cartier, to name a few) and countless independent designers, including Stephen Webster, Lauren Harwell Godfrey, Lauren Kessler, Katherine Jetter, and Robert Turner, whom Victoria roamed some of the shows with. And they were all looking for different things.

Stephen Webster was a unique designer to follow, since he was equally invested in finding rough stones. She describes the different shows they attended to find these. She describes him spraying a rough Peruvian pink opal with water to get a sense of the color. Because you can’t see into these stones, all you have to go off of is the outside. It’s only after cutting into the stone that you know what you’re working with. Victoria quotes Stephen’s colorful way of describing that process: “Sometimes you get what we call ‘angel’s skin’ and other times you get ‘angel’s toenail.’”

Most designers start with the stones and build their collections around that. And everyone had their own unique things they were drawn to. Robert Turner loves zircons, tsavorite, and stones in brilliant colors. Katherine Jetter is an opal specialist, so she was looking for those along with Mahenge spinels, which come in very vibrant hot pinks, and were very popular with many designers. Victoria enjoyed being a fly on the wall following these designers on their treasure hunts.

Victoria spoke to Dave Bindra, who—when interviewed in an earlier episode—had made some predictions of what he thought would be hot in Tucson. He had talked about sunset and sunrise colors, which did do very well. There was also a lot of interest in demantoid garnet. Demantoid from Russia is very hot right now but of course, supplies are very complicated. There was growing interest in a newer demantoid supplier in Madagascar, Prosperity Earth, founded by John Ferry (another podcast guest), that both mines and cuts the stones.

Diamond Supplier News

De Beers and Botswana signed a 10-year deal in 2011, which moved all De Beers’ diamond sales from London to Botswana. That change made Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, a new hub of diamonds. The deal ran out in 2021, and it has been extended three times. Now, it’s time for a new contract, and the negotiations have been complex and lengthy.

Rob explains that both De Beers and Botswana are very dependent on one another: Botswana’s economy relies heavily on its diamond revenues while De Beers relies on Botswana as its biggest diamond producer. It’s one of the reasons why De Beers is a dominant force in the industry. There has been some tension renegotiating the contract, which is understandable considering how much is riding on it for both parties. It’s in both sides’ best interests to come to an agreement, but it has been a more complicated and drawn-out process than people expected.

In other diamond supply news, it has been one year since Russia’s war on Ukraine began, and though Russian diamonds are officially sanctioned in the U.S., there is a loophole. Diamonds can be mined in Russia, but if they are cut in India, they are not considered Russian diamonds due to the doctrine of “substantial transformation.” There have been a lot of discussion about tightening sanctions given the one-year anniversary of this war. The U.S. might decide to remove that loophole. People could then have to declare and provide evidence that their diamonds did not come from Russia, which can be difficult to do, depending on what documentation is available. According to the latest Kimberley Process stats, Russia keeps exporting diamonds, despite all the sanctions. They’ve lost a lot of money because of the war, but the sanctions may not have had the impact the U.S. had hoped.

Putting Chat GPT To Work

Rob has been fascinated and somewhat appalled by Chat GPT, so he has been experimenting with it. He used Chat GPT to write a poem about whether lab-grown diamonds are mining-free in the style of Dr. Seuss! An excerpt is below:

Oh, the term ‘mining-free,’ it sounds so grand

But let’s look closer, let’s take a stand

For labeling something as such can be a trap

And lead to misconceptions and a big mishap.

It produced five paragraphs that are coherent, amusing, and even show a sophisticated understanding of some of the issues. The amazing thing is that the bot did all this in only three seconds. Rob spoke to David Sherwood, CEO of Daniel’s Jewelers, who is a Chat GPT enthusiast. David used it to brainstorm a Valentine’s Day slogan, and he used it! (The slogan was, “Bling it.”)

Victoria teases an interview she did with two people about AI, the metaverse, and watches, which she wants to cover in a later episode. Her interview pairs watch lover Miles Fisher—the creator of the “Deepfake Tom Cruise” TikTok account—with Edouard Meylan, the CEO of H. Moser & Cie. who has experimented a lot with the metaverse and NFTs.

Any views expressed in this podcast do not reflect the opinion of JCK, its management, or its advertisers.