The Diamond Industry’s Predicament and Philippe Stern’s Legacy: ‘The Jewelry District’

By Natalie Chomet | July 28, 2026

Hosts Victoria Gomelsky and Rob Bates catch up after Rob’s return from the World Diamond Congress in Singapore. He shares his impression of the event, including observations about the state of the diamond industry and possible paths forward. (Get a bonus glimpse into Victoria’s experience visiting Singapore as a backpacker in her 20s.) They also touch on the closing of the historic Ekati mine. And after speaking to many who knew him, Victoria reflects on the legacy of the late Philippe Stern, the patriarch of the family that has helmed Patek Philippe for nearly 100 years.

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Title sponsor: De Beers (adiamondisforever.com)

Show Notes
01:25 World Diamond Congress in Singapore
12:50 How to drive natural diamond demand
22:00 Reflecting on the legacy of Philippe Stern

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.… You’re back, Rob. You went very far away.

Rob:
Yes, I went to Singapore.

Victoria:
You were there in mid-July, for those who are listening to this later.

Rob:
I’ve never been there before. It’s a very lovely city. I was there for the World Diamond Congress. Every two years, the World Federation of Diamond Bourses and the International Diamond Manufacturers Association (IDMA) meet up and have sessions.

I did a lot of moderating for some of the panels. I also moderated last year when it was in New York. And I remember Singapore put this impassioned plea to hold the congress. People weren’t sure because it was a very small bourse. At that point, I think everybody was ready to do it in Dubai again. But Singapore put themselves forward and said, “We really want to do this.”

And I have to say, they did an amazing job. It really was a lovely congress. They took us to an aquarium and a flower garden that was really nice. Not everybody agreed on everything at that congress, but I think everybody agreed that Singapore really pulled out all the stops and really showed their city as best they could. It was a nice place, very clean, very modern.

Victoria:
A little anecdote about Singapore before we get to the heart of what we’re talking about, which is of course the congress: My first time in Singapore was as a backpacker in 1997. I had been backpacking through Southeast Asia and ended up staying in a hostel. I saw the sights and thought it was a very beautiful city.

By Day 3, when I was checking out, I had these little red bites all over my legs. And I just could not figure out what they were. I finally realized I had bedbugs. Luckily, they didn’t follow me around because I went on to Malaysia after that and didn’t bring them. But the irony of going to the cleanest, most organized, efficient city-state in perhaps the world, and it’s the one place I get bedbugs.

But it did not sour me. I have been back a couple of times since then. And the food is really my number 1 draw. It’s amazing cuisine that blends Malay, Chinese, and Indian flavors. I’m glad you experienced it.

Rob:
I didn’t know you had a backpacking phase.

Victoria:
Yes. When I was 22, I took my first backpacking trip through Central America and a bit of the Caribbean for three months. Then I went to Southeast Asia when I was 24, and went back when I was 26.

But it was a great introduction to a lot of places that I’ve returned to through the gem and jewelry world. So it was a good kind of foundation for some of the travels I would do as a professional editor.

I am curious because I’ve never been to one of these World Diamond Congresses. I’d always assumed they were just a bit more performative—I didn’t know if anything really got done there. So tell me: Did it feel substantive in the things that were being talked about and the decisions that were being made? What is it like?

Rob:
I would say they’re a mix. There was a World Diamond Congress that was very momentous in Antwerp in 2000 when everybody agreed on the Kimberley Process. That was huge. That was the diamond congress to attend. There was a lot going on and a lot of excitement.

This one—it was a lot of meetings, panels, discussions. As usual, the most important things takes place offline, in the halls with people meeting each other. But there was some interesting stuff. It was probably the first congress I’ve been to that had no De Beers people there. They had this big week where they laid off a lot of people and put one of their mines on hold.

The minister of mines from Botswana, Minister Kenewendo, was probably the biggest name who was there. There was a gentleman from Angola as well. There have definitely been some congresses where they’ve made major decisions. I don’t think this was one of them.

There was a little controversy over letting Qatar into the World Federation, but at the end of the day, they did get in.

I’ve been going to these things for like 30 years. And it’s funny, there’s generally a little tension between the World Federation and IDMA. There’s been tension between these two groups since I started, and it still goes on, but it’s in some cases it’s a lot of the same faces, the people who are more active in the associations.

It was an interesting time because, obviously the diamond industry is in a really tough spot. That week was particularly horrible because you had that big De Beers announcement of layoffs and that they’re putting a mine on hold. Then a few days afterwards, it was the announcement that Ekati was shutting down, and it’s one of the big, historic mines in our industry.

But this is something that continually impresses me: It’s been a four-year crisis, essentially, for the diamond industry, and it keeps dragging on. But there was a lot of fight. People really wanted to promote natural diamonds, and there was a lot of spirit and pride in natural diamonds. All that has not gone away. Obviously, people have a lot of inventory, so they can’t just give up, but I think people really felt like, “We want to do something. We want to make something more positive happen.”

So despite all the bad news, it wasn’t a dejected conference. I think people really had a sense that they wanted to do something. They’re still in this game and they want to keep promoting natural diamonds. The new CEO of the Natural Diamond Council, Amber Pepper, was there for a while and she talked about some of the things that she’s going to do.

My favorite panel, which I did last year and we did again this year, was talking to some of the younger people in the audience and getting their sense of why people in their 40s and 30s would want to go into this business when you see so many headlines about businesses dying and having all these problems. Why would you still want to go into this business? And there are some people who still really believe in natural diamonds, which is nice to see.

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Victoria:
And are the delegates global? Or are they primarily American, Indian, and Israeli?

Rob:
It was a very global crew. The main centers of commerce dominated: U.S., Belgium, Dubai, India, Israel. Those were all there, but I met somebody from Tanzania. I think there were people there from Ghana, Angola, and Botswana.

If you ask how these things have changed, 15 or 20 years ago, we never heard from people from Botswana—never mind them actively taking a role in the organizations and on the panels. So their voice is a lot louder, as it should be because it’s a very important industry for them.

But yes, it’s very global with people from all over the world, and a decent number of Americans. Dave Bonaparte from Jewelers of America was there. The head of Chow Tai Fook was on one of my panels. So, a wide range of people.

Victoria:
In terms of this focus on solutions or ideas to drive demand, did people have ideas that did or didn’t feel actionable? I’m curious what people are saying and thinking about on this topic.

Rob:
I think when people have these discussions, they have to go through the five stages. Natural diamond demand has gone down, so at first there’s anger and then there’s bargaining, acceptance… I don’t know if there was anything new that came from this.

There is the Luanda Accord, where all these countries have agreed to fund the Natural Diamond Council, and that’s not happening as quickly as people hoped. The Natural Diamond Council has new leadership and people want to understand what it’s doing, what it’s going to accomplish, what people will get for their money. So that’s an ongoing discussion.

I think people also understand that you can’t rest on your laurels, that you have to go out and promote the product. And that’s something that people didn’t always understand and it came up quite a bit. This industry typically said, “Well, De Beers will promote diamonds for us. The NDC will promote diamonds for us.” And one of the things that people talked about is that it’s not just the NDC’s or De Beers’ responsibility, that everybody has to play a role if the industry’s going to get back on its feet again.

There were definitely some optimistic signs—I don’t think anything major, but there were definite signs that things are starting to turn around a little bit. I would say the sentiment toward Desert Diamonds—which I should note is our sponsor—was pretty positive. It actually seems to be working and to be helping that particular strand of goods.

Everybody’s wondering what’s going to happen with De Beers. But overall, one thing that I’ve noticed, is that diamond people—they’re entrepreneurs, and they’re very adaptable. And I think they’re starting to see, “Okay, we’re not going to be the only kid in town and we’re going to have to share a lot of our sales with lab-grown, and we’ll to have to figure out how that works.” There’s not going to be some magical moment where all of a sudden lab-grown is relegated to this very low end of the spectrum.

If you think about it, everybody talks about marketing and that GIA should have put out reports. If you look at the K-shaped economy, it’s a very good product for this current environment, right? People are looking to save money. People are graduating, they have student loans. Their future is perhaps not as assured as it used to be with things like AI on the horizon. And gas prices just went up again.

So people are looking to save money any way they can. And one of the ways they’re doing that is by buying lab-grown diamonds. You can agree or disagree with that choice. But from the standpoint of young people in America who are having a difficult time in a very unbalanced economy, it’s not an illogical choice.

Victoria:
And when you say young people are buying lab-grown, you’re specifically saying engagement rings.

Rob:
Yes, right.

Victoria:
And at the congress, was there any sense or collective agreement that for natural diamonds to continue to thrive, or for this community and industry to thrive, that you’d have to go after the more affluent customers with bigger, more distinct stones? Give up on the 2 caraters, even? Or 1½ caraters?

Rob:
The problem is you can’t do that, right? That’s the easiest solution to the problem. And that sector of the industry is doing great. The high end is doing extremely well, as demonstrated by results from Richemont and Kering and all these places. So that side of the industry is doing fine.

The problem is lab-grown manufacturers can produce whatever they want. Mines can’t. There are ways you can manipulate it a bit, but you’re limited by what Mother Nature gives you. And most of what it gives you are not these beautiful high-end diamonds. And that’s really where the problem is.

Even though there are parts of the industry that are doing so well, the Ekati mine just had to close. De Beers is having tremendous problems. Every mine is having issues because the bread-and-butter goods that are the majority of their output are not as saleable as they used to be.

Victoria:
It does seem like a real conundrum. How did people receive the Ekati news? And is there a sense that with fewer goods on the market or mines in production that natural goods will continue to rise in cost because supply is down?

Rob:
The estimates are that production is going to fall under 100 million carats either this year or next year. And that’s the first time in decades that it’s been that low. We’ve had a few mines go out—Diavik went out, Ekati’s going out, De Beers just put Finsch on hold—and De Beers has cut production in general. But there still might need to be pricing and supply adjustments. There are a lot of factors and variables.

I had an interesting conversation with someone at the congress who sells both lab and natural. He’s from India where a lot of people do that. He said, “If we didn’t have lab, we would have been in a lot of trouble.” He said, because China’s demand went down so much that the only way they could have filled that was with lab.

I think people blame lab-grown diamonds for a lot of problems, and it obviously has been a cause. There’s no question about that. You lose 50% of engagement rings in your core market. That’s going to hurt a lot. But China’s a big problem too. And there are some signs that Chinese demand is coming back. We’re getting a mix of positive and negative signs.

People want to find out what’s going on with the De Beers sale. We’re starting to hear a lot of leaks that a consortium headed by former De Beers CEO, Gareth Penny, is going to take over the company. The Ekati news was somewhat expected, but it’s disheartening because it really was such a prestigious mine and something that people were very proud of. It was profitable for so long, and it was the first mine in Canada. So for that to have this ignominious end, following two bankruptcies and having a whole bunch of owners who piled on debt as they tend to do with these acquisitions… I think that left a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths.

Victoria:
Yes, certainly at the end of it. When I first started writing about jewelry and learning about diamonds 25 years ago, there was so much news coming out of Canada and so much excitement.

I have a piece coming out this week. It’s more of a reflection as opposed to news. It’s about Philippe Stern, who was the patriarch of the Stern family that has owned Patek Philippe since 1932. Back in the ’30s, Philippe Stern’s grandfather and great uncle were dial makers. They were suppliers to Patek Philippe at the time.

Then the Great Depression hit and the company was on the brink of insolvency. And the dial makers—the Stern family—bought it and built it into the top of the pyramid when it comes to luxury watchmaking. And much of that comes back to Philippe Stern and the decisions he made.

The reason I’m talking about him is he passed away in mid-June at 88. He had stepped away and handed over the reins of managing the company to his son, Thierry Stern, who’s still at the head of the company. My piece in The New York Times was more of an appreciation. It wasn’t so much an obituary because The New York Times obit desk had taken care of that shortly after he died.

I talked to people who had known him personally. And I had a long conversation with Hank Edelman. Many Patek Philippe retailers here in the U.S. will know him. He was president of the brand here and president of the Henry Stern Watch Agency, the U.S. distributor for Patek Philippe. Henry was Philippe’s father. He was the one who initiated this presence in the U.S. market, which became their most important market, I would say.

Hank began working at Patek Philippe in 1961 as a messenger. He was just a few years younger than Philippe. And Philippe, as was the tradition, was sent over to the U.S. shortly after starting in the family business. He was around 25 and started working in their New York office in the early ’60s, stayed for a couple of years, and went back to Geneva with these learnings about what it was like to sell in the American market.

It was fascinating because back in the ’60s—from what I heard from Hank and some of the other people I spoke to—it was nothing like it is today. It was a challenge just to get retailers to stock these watches, to get them to commit to selling even a handful of watches. So that was their effort. There were no waiting lists. There was no sought-after demand with customers saying, “Please, I’m desperate!” Nothing at all like this.

Philippe’s greatest legacy, from all these conversations I had, was his commitment to mechanical watchmaking at a time when, as the ’70s progressed, many people, including retailers, just thought, This is it, it’s over, it’s going to be quartz from now on.

How are you going to shift? What are you going to do to make your company something that still stands? And what Philippe did was really commit to the point where at around 1980, for the company’s 150th anniversary celebration in 1989—so nine years out—he starts working on a piece called the Calibre 89, a pocket watch that was the most complicated portable timepiece ever made. This is coming out of the worst crisis the industry has ever experienced. And he committed to that.

He decided to build a factory in the early ’90s that was in Plan-les-Ouates, an enclave at the time, a village on the outskirts of Geneva. There was almost nothing there. His commitment to building this facility that united all Patek’s watchmaking was so prescient because now that enclave is, the nickname is “Plan les Watches.” Piaget, Rolex, and Vacheron Constantin are there. It became this center for high-end watchmaking.

Lastly, for clients and lovers of the brand and anyone who happens to be passing through Geneva: He was a collector of mechanical timepieces, not just Pateks, but all kinds of historic pieces. He created a museum—I believe it opened in 2001 in Geneva—the Patek Phillippe Museum. And it is such a mecca. For anybody interested in mechanical watchmaking, it is a must-see because it documents the history of that.

He was instrumental in shaping the brand and making it what it is today, which is incredibly sought-after. The brand that is name-checked in rap lyrics and commands all kinds of crazy sums at auction. It was a fascinating study to think about how much has changed in just 30 years.

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