Welcome to the Jewelry District, a podcast by J.C.K. brought to you by De Beers. Today, Rob Bates and Victoria

Gamalski talk about their 2026 predictions, including what the year will have in

store for the diamond market, colored stone and fashion trends, the Tucson shows, and luxury retail

in the U.S. and abroad.

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to the jewelry district.

This is Victoria Gamelski, editor-in-chief of JCP and JCPline.com, calling in from Los Angeles, and I'm with. Rob Bates, news director of JCPay and JCP online.com, calling in from New York City. How goes it? Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, too, 2026. Already off to an exciting start. It is an off to an exciting start. I must say, how was your holiday? How was your break? It was very restful and very nice. It was just really restful. I'm kind of hung out, and we were in New Jersey for a little bit, and it was good. That's exactly what you want to hear from somebody coming back from a break, that it was

restful. I feel like a lot of breaks are like you need a break from your break. Yeah, no, it was not like that. Thankfully. How was yours? You weren't in New Jersey, I guess. I wasn't in New Jersey. I was mostly in L.A. We had a really nice, chill Christmas. There was a ton of rain in L.A., but it did not dampen our festivities.

And then I never do this. was mostly in L.A. We had a really nice chill Christmas. There was a ton of rain in L.A., but it did not

dampen our festivities. And then I never do this, but Jim, Nico and I went to Las Vegas right after New Year.

We went for the weekend, the second to the fourth, and stayed at the Fontainebleau, which people

who come to J.C.K. Las Vegas may have stayed there or may have gone to, it's one of the

newest hotels. In fact, I think it is the newest hotel on the strip. It opened two years ago,

and it is really beautiful. It's the second property in, I guess, owned by the same owner. There's

a Fontainebleau famously in Miami. And it's really beautiful. I dare say it's the most luxurious space on the strip, most of the luxurious hotel.

It has some really great retail, really great restaurants.

They turn their pool into an ice rink.

And I actually went ice skating with Nico and Jim.

And I totally ate S-H-I-T. As you can imagine, I haven't ice skating since I was like 12. Nico fell quite a bit too. He professes to now hate ice skating, but I thought it was hilarious. I mean, I did probably bruise myself, but I was proud that I at least dared to get on a rink. It was just like a rink on a pool, which was kind of cool. So yeah, anyway, that's a long way of saying anybody who's in Vegas between now and the show or after the show during the show should make it a point to check out the Fontainebleau and at least try dinner at either Dawn's Prime, which is their amazing steakhouse or Mother Wolf, which is real real fine, not find any excellent dining experience. It's Italian. Evan Funk, who's a chef from here in L.A., opened up an outpost of Mother Wolf in Vegas. And yeah, more to come. It's really, I was kind of blown away. Because, you know, you come to Vegas every year like we all do, and you just go to your same spots. and there's always something new in Vegas, but it, you know, you come to Vegas every year like we all do and you just go to your same spots and there's always something new in Vegas, but it's hard to get that excited. It's just Vegas, but this was actually kind of exciting and it was nice to be there with the family. So that's maybe a good moment to talk about what we're going to talk about today, which is, of course, our predictions for 2026 and what we hear and maybe what

forecasts we've seen. I do hope things are a little clearer by June, and they should be after

we've gone through numerous shows and numerous get-togethers with the industry. But you've just

done some research into, I guess, what the outlook is for the diamond trade. Can you talk a

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