Victoria Gomelsky and Rob Bates cover a gamut of enriching industry events and jewelry business news. Victoria bounced from Jewelers Mutual’s thought-provoking Conversations at Half Moon Bay to the ultra-luxe and action-packed Watches and Wonders in Geneva. She shares takeaways from Conversations and the watch trends spotted in Geneva. Rob breaks down what the tariff refunds mean for businesses and which importers qualify. Finally, he shares his thoughts on QVC’s bankruptcy filing, the company’s possible future, and its influence on the jewelry industry.

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Title sponsor: De Beers (adiamondisforever.com)

Show Notes
01:30 Jewelers Mutual’s Conversations at Half Moon Bay
09:30 Watches and Wonders Geneva
17:50 Tariff refunds for importers
22:10 QVC bankruptcy update

Episode Credits
Hosts: Rob Bates and Victoria Gomelsky
Producer and engineer: Natalie Chomet
Editor: Riley McCaskill
Plugs: @jckmagazine; adiamondisforever.com

Episode Transcript
This transcript has been abridged and edited for clarity.

Victoria:
Hey everyone, welcome to The Jewelry District…

Rob:
How are you doing?

Victoria:
I’m good. Hanging in. This is always my busy time. Fall ends up being very busy too, but I always have a big trip in the middle of the spring. And Watches and Wonders in Geneva takes a solid week out of my life.

I came directly from the Jewelers Mutual’s Conversations at Half Moon Bay conference. It took place April 10th to 12th in beautiful Half Moon Bay, California, which maybe people have never heard of. It’s a small enclave north of Santa Cruz and south of San Francisco, right on the coast.

So my travels this spring started with heading to Half Moon Bay to spend time with Jewelers Mutual. I wrote a story on it. It was a really interesting event, focused largely on AI. Jewelers Mutual started Conversations in Park City about four years ago, had a couple of those conversation events in Park City, and this is the first one in Half Moon Bay. I believe it’s going to be a traveling event, so they might have a different location next time.

It’s the brainchild of former JCK publisher and current dear friend, Mark Smelzer, who came up with it. They bring in somebody who is a content specialist, but isn’t a jewelry person, to manage which speakers they’re going to bring in. Almost all of the speakers on day 1 were AI-related, really nothing to do with jewelry.

The talks were both deeply enlightening and slightly worrisome. There’s a lot of consternation about what it all means for retail, for business, and for life in general. But I think the takeaway—and my article talks about this idea—was that the event was so personal, intimate, and face-to-face, and there was so much joy in that. People loved seeing each other. We weren’t at a trade show, so we didn’t only have 30 minutes before scooting off to our next appointment. There was time to spend with each other.

Even in the midst of all this talk about automation and how artificial intelligence is going to make things faster for us, how we might deploy agents—or what’s known as agentic AI—in order to do things for us, we were celebrating being face-to-face with each other. And that was the biggest takeaway.

It was a neat juxtaposition. The topic was clinical, in a way. You feel like everything’s going to be outsourced to some hive mind. And yet the real joy of the event was being together. There were some team activities. We went on a gorgeous hike. There was a lot to learn there.

Rob:
So you said it was a little unsettling. Was there anything that kind of reassured you? And how did they kind of relate AI to jewelry?

Victoria:
Well, they talked a lot about the way that AI has morphed. And for a while, when we first got ChatGPT, a lot of people were using it like Google, to answer questions and do a very broad search. But what we learned was that AI has moved on and there’s this doing aspect to AI. You can command various platforms in there.

They provided names of companies that have designed platforms for you to build an app literally in minutes. So, we did build an app as an audience, led by the presenter who was the expert. He sought ideas for an app that could work for a jewelry clientele. The prompt was: Help us build a ring sizing app to give to our customers so we can make this easy for them. We designed it using different platforms that create mock-ups and screenshots.

The app itself was built literally within minutes, while this presenter was talking to us about all these tools. That was shocking. Maybe not shocking to people who’ve used these tools, but shocking to those of us who hadn’t, that you can do this. It used to take weeks, if not months of development.

Rob:
You pay somebody.

Victoria:
Yes, you pay somebody. Now it all works off of prompts.

Rob:
And it was a respectable app, I assume.

Victoria:
I mean, we didn’t do a lot of tire-kicking on it. But yes, at first glance, it looked good. Because everybody has access to the same tools, and yes, you do have to make some design decisions, but we’re going to see a lot of sameness. We already do. Everybody’s got these apps that they offer. There’s no work involved in putting them together, and they just look a bit blandly the same. There’s a soullessness to them. And it made me wonder.

One of the final speakers was an interesting trend forecaster who talked about how much more emphasis people are placing on handcraftedness. For example, the rise of craft vacations. I just saw an article about how, rather than going to wellness resorts or beaches, people are signing up for classes on how to make stencil art or even how to make brooms.

I do think that we’re going to start to see a lot more emphasis on handcraftedness and on the beautiful flaws that come with human hands, that are part of a person making something. Things are going to have these natural little flaws and touches of somebody’s actual fingers. And we’re going to value that because in the age of AI, we’re going to be so overexposed to that blandly, perfectly same sameness.

Rob:
That’s one thing I wonder is, people will say you can use AI to do your business strategy and to figure out how to outwit your competitors or do more business than your competitors. However, if your competitors have access to the same tools and everybody’s going kind of from the same knowledge base, how does that really give you an up? It just puts everybody on the same level in a weird way.

Victoria:
I agree. It’s all going to be case by case, but I do think people who can infuse their communications with their authentic real selves and not outsource that to the AI will stand out.

After Conversations, I hustled off straight to Geneva for Watches and Wonders. I started out with a massive sleep deficit, but plowed right into my first event, which was Universal Genève. Does that ring a bell to you?

Rob:
Yes, Breitling or House of Brands now?

Victoria:
Correct. Breitling acquired the IP and the brand name. Universal Genève had long time been a dead brand, one of those remarkable 20th century makers. It was famously one of the places where the legendary watch designer Gérald Genta got his start and designed the Polerouter, an iconic model collectors and vintage lovers salivate for.

It has been this darling of the vintage space and it had been acquired by various companies but never got back to its former self or had any of that glory. Then Breitling acquired it. A few years ago, there was a big public launch. They’ve done a really good job with these products. There are a lot of stone dials, a lot of vintage inspiration.

They had Gérald Genta’s widow, the wonderful Evelyne Genta, and their daughter Alexia at the event. They had another woman named Nina Rindt, who was responsible for another iconic Universal Genève style. She was the wife of a famous race car driver, Jochen Rindt. She was at the event. So there was a lot of homage to the vintage originals of these pieces and how they’ve been refined and updated for modern day.

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Rob:
What other trends did you see there?

Victoria:
Well, I’ll briefly sketch. Watches and Wonders ran from Tuesday, April 14th, through Monday the 20th. Trade journalists skate away from Geneva by Friday because by Saturday and Sunday when the public is invited in, it’s a madhouse. There was a generally a very good vibe. It felt crowded and buzzy, but not overly crowded. I had a day that started at 8:30 and literally every half hour was accounted for.

One thing I must say is, Watches and Wonders very much feels like a bubble. You’re in this luxury space and you’re talking about luxury watches. Most everything that’s going on around the world is on the outside. And last year that was disrupted when we had the tariff announcement and suddenly that’s all anybody could talk about. Even though Rolex had a massive introduction last year of its new Land-Dweller collection, which is equipped with its Dynapulse escapement, a new escapement from the most important brand in the business. It was big news, and yet it was overshadowed.

This year, that bubble was intact, and there was something very refreshing about not having to worry about geopolitics, at least for the time we were there at the Palexpo convention center. It was a good crowd. People felt upbeat. There were a lot of collectors there, because collectors, unlike the members of the public, get special access to come in during these press and retailer days.

I wouldn’t say there was a single big product or one big piece of news that rocked the fair. What we saw was a real focus on smaller and much more slender timepieces. Bulgari got a lot of attention for its new Octo Finissimo 37. Octo Finissimo, which came out in 2014, has become a real icon, and I try not to overuse that word, but people are obsessed with this piece. It was 40 millimeters in size for quite a long time. Bulgari focused on getting it as thin as possible in these slim wars we’ve seen over the last few years.

But this time they focused on bringing down the diameter. The way they explained it is they wanted it to be accessible to all kinds of wrists, which really meant this piece that was envisioned, created, and initially marketed as a very much a men’s piece is now accessible to all genders and all size wrists. And we saw that across the board.

We saw Patek Philippe introduce the 50th anniversary of its Nautilus collection. None of the pieces were in steel. They were in platinum. There might have been a white gold model. They also brought the Nautilus down. Now it’s 38 mm. Remarkable. I loved. It was slender, slender, slender.

Vacheron Constantin got a lot of attention for its new Overseas Ultra-Thin model. The way they described the movement (2.4 mm) was about the size of two stacked credit cards, which I keep envisioning in my mind. So there was a lot of focus on bringing things down in size, making sure that watches can fit under cuffs.

Cam Wolf, a writer for GQ, pointed this out in one of his reviews of the fair: There was a lot of focus on time-only functionality, not a lot of complications. Even Ulysse Nardin, which 25 years ago made a big groundbreaking introduction at Baselworld when they introduced a watch known as Freak—one of the earliest examples of what has gone on to become like a superwatch, an example of high watchmaking. The Freak was different. It had no hands. It used the mechanism itself to tell the time. It used the turning of the movement to indicate the hours. It was really a different kind of watch. It also incorporated silicon for the first time.

So 25 years later, Ulysse Nardin released a watch called Super Freak that builds on all the achievements of the past 25 years that the Freak platform has developed and seen. They billed it as the world’s most complicated time-only watch. It’s this incredibly complicated piece with 511 components and white gold casing, but all it does is tell the hours and minutes and—newly for the Freak—seconds.

It was a very interesting fair. In terms of colors, they were all over the board. There were a lot of dial colors. The big news at Rolex was less about what it introduced and more about what it took away, which was the “Pepsi bezel.” A GMT Master II, one of its iconic models with the blue and red bezel was discontinued. And there had been speculation building for a couple months about that. It was confirmed at Watches and Wonders. And so prices on the secondary market for those models have gone up and up and up. It was a good week.

One thing we were chatting about this before the fair was tariffs, and that was not a conversation at all at this year’s show. Very stark contrast.

Rob:
Even though there are still tariffs. As we record this, there are 10% tariffs on every import.

Victoria:
Update us on what that means, what we can expect, and what the refunds are. They did not come up almost at all in Geneva.

Rob:
Right now we’re under these 10% tariffs that expire on July 24th. Then the administration has started what is called the Section 301 investigations. These are usually very targeted, limited investigations into a specific country to look at how they’re treating their imports and exports.

This administration basically is doing 60 at once. It has indicated these investigations are going to be a means to an end to get to where the tariffs were before the Supreme Court struck them down. This way, it might get back to some of the bigger tariffs, like the 18% tariff on Indian imports. In Switzerland, it was about 15% toward the end. So now everything is 10%. Most people think that the administration is using this 301 process to get to the specific endpoint that it wants.

The other big thing with tariffs is that the first round—basically the first year—of all the tariffs were deemed illegal. As a result, when people take your money illegally, you get it back. So any importer who has paid a tariff is entitled to that back plus 6% interest.

It’s not a bad deal. Certain companies reportedly might get a material benefit, assuming that they get these full refunds back. It’s going to be about $160 billion being returned from these tariffs—that’s crazy. There’s going to be a lot going on.

Again, if you were the importer of record and you paid the tariff, you should apply to get your money back. Apparently, it’s not that hard. Things may change by the time this podcast comes out, but the refunds are supposed to be processed within 60 to 90 days. We’re going to have a lot of rich companies perhaps in the next few months.

The original tariffs were unprecedented, and these refunds are certainly unprecedented in scope and in size. Sara Yood at the JVC [Jewelers Vigilance Committee] said—and this was also my experience—the people she spoke to found it easier than they expected. But there’s also the news stories of people having a tough time and of the system crashing, as you can imagine. We’re talking about millions of entries and a lot of money at stake.

From what I hear, they’re being relatively accommodating. Right now, it only applies to tariffs that were not liquidated or were liquidated within 80 days. So, it only applies to two-thirds of tariffs, and I should mention that liquidated means settled. If you and customs both agree on what the tariff is, then that’s considered a liquidated tariff. But two-thirds of the available tariffs is plenty, and that’s a lot of money. The tariffs that were liquidated a little while back might be tougher to work out. We’ll see how well it works.

Victoria:
Well, I think there was another big piece of news you were covering: Tell us about QVC.

Rob:
We all know QVC and HSN. They’re now part of the same company. QVC was the biggest home shopping network for years. It was a huge seller of jewelry. Many people say that jewelry was one of the things that put both QVC and HSN on the map. They would sell all sorts of different exotic gemstones.

It became a form of entertainment, people would be flipping through the channels, end up on QVC, and spend. Even now with so many people giving up cable and becoming cord-cutters, QVC still does about $9 billion in business. It’s a substantial retailer. Now, jewelry is not as big a factor in the company. It’s about 5% of its revenue, but it’s still a huge player in the market because 5% of $9 billion is a decent amount of money.

It’s one of those companies where the business wasn’t necessarily terrible, but it was ladled on with debts because of different financial transactions. Because of that, it had to go Chapter 11. So now both QVC and HSN are in Chapter 11. Now, it’s a prepackaged Chapter 11, so they’re hoping that they can get out of it. I believe the timetable is 90 days. They’re hoping it’s going to be quick, but it’s always a risk.

When it comes out of Chapter 11, and its debt will be significantly reduced after that, it’ll be financially healthier. Even so, there are still doubts about its ability to continue. QVC was this weird American institution. I think it’s going to survive in some way because it does still have a sizable consumer base.

The problem is that right now, there is a lot of online selling, live selling, which is going to TikTok, Instagram. So, there’s not the kind of market that there was because what was on cable TV has now dispersed to all these different technologies. So, there is a market. I talk to a lot of people who work with or used to work with the company, and a lot of them are really upset.

I think the thing that QVC did really well is it nurtured selling talent. It got people on the air who were good at selling, who were good at bonding with viewers, and who were good at explaining things. And that’s how they did it. And that kind of skill, if can still nurture talent that way, that is certainly transferable to online. But if you don’t have it, if that’s gone away, then you have fewer opportunities.

It’s a shame, but it looks like they’re going to come through, at least for the moment. We’ll just have to see. So many things have been changed by technology, and this is just another example.

Victoria:
I’m surprised it took this long, frankly, but I’m happy to hear they’re restructuring. It really is a big name in our world and has shaped a lot of different careers and businesses.

Rob, it’s always a pleasure to get your thoughts. Thanks for letting me go on about watches.

Rob:
Always, and I’m glad you’re back in the USA. And you saw a lot of watches and wonders.

Victoria:
Yes, some wonders too.

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

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