Meet Kettle Kids, A Rare Watch Seller Disrupting London’s Old Bond Street

LONDON — Brothers Harvey and Jacob Hutson, founders of rare watch and jewelry seller Kettle Kids, had to postpone the interview with WWD twice because on the originally scheduled day they got a last-minute request to deliver two Richard Mille watches to a player training at the England soccer camp St. Georges Park in Burton upon Trent, north of Birmingham.

“Those guys can’t get Richard Milles from the boutique. The production is low and the waiting list is long. It doesn’t matter that they play for England, it’s near impossible to get. So they come to people like us and spend the money with us instead because they feel like it’s money well spent,” the Hutson brothers said during the rescheduled chat the following day.

It’s clear that Kettle Kids is a passion project. They get a thrill from conquering short-turnaround requests.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re working, to be honest with you. It just feels like we’re just on it for friends and family and doing what we love. Even the England players yesterday, they were like, ‘You guys have got the best job in the world,’” they said.

Recently, a member of the Saudi royal family passed by the store and asked if Kettle Kids could find him a brand new, white gold Patek Philippe Aquanaut in green.

According to the brothers, the style has a five-year-long waiting list. “He wanted it within an hour before he had to get to the airport. We managed to find one and he bought the watch because it was green and it matched his jacket on the day,” the brothers added.

Another story they love to tell is that a major Chinese celebrity couple randomly walked into their store and asked for a Cartier Crush Paris edition watch made in 1991, the year one of them was born.

Only 400 were made, and the Hutsons were able to find one in the Middle East and bring it back to London within 24 hours before the couple headed back to Beijing.

They are good at CRM, too. After an initial purchase, the Hutsons continue to build a relationship with customers via WhatsApp or WeChat, and their team of 10 employees will go above and beyond to source watches from London, Miami, Dubai, Hong Kong and Tokyo for the clients.

Since 2017, Kettle Kids has grown swiftly from an online community to a sleek and secure store on Maddox Street in Mayfair, London.

The brand name derives from the Cockney rhyming slang “kettle and hob,” which means a “fob” watch, a pocket watch attached to a belt or pocket with a small chain. In South London, according to the brothers, owning a watch is part of the DNA, and most people would have bought a watch before they bought a house.

“Obviously, the Kids part is because of our age. We got into the business when we were young. We made a running joke of it, and it kicked off pretty quickly. It rhymed well. It stayed in people’s minds of who we were,” they explained.

But the best is yet to come. Last December, their proposal of becoming the first luxury reseller on Old Bond Street won the landlord over and secured a 20-year lease to take over an entire building, neighboring Valentino, Vacheron Constantin and the largest Rolex store in Europe.

Spanning more than 4,500 square feet, the Kettle Kids Old Bond Street store, designed by Hesselbrand, an architecture studio based in London and Oslo, is set to open in June, while the Maddox Street location will cease operation simultaneously.

There will be five floors of retail space, which will include a jewelry department on the first floor, a watch polishing and repair center on the top floor and a wine cellar in the basement.

A major attraction and display of power will be the ground-floor window. It will feature up to 100 of some of the rarest watches in the world at the time of opening, and the store will stock around 250 watches for customers to buy straight away. No waiting list or additional purchases required.

The Hutsons said the store will not only serve celebrities, athletes and royalty who are deep into their watch collections but also those who are starting on their timepiece-collecting journey.

“Our demographics are quite broad, from those who want to buy watches that no one else will have, to business owners, entrepreneurs, senior executives and musicians. We sell watches from around 1,000 pounds up to a million pounds,” the brothers said.

“Our goal is to curate the best watch collections in the world for our clients and take them on the journey with us. We offer a VIP shuttle service where we can collect the clients and bring them to the store, or we can go and meet them anywhere in the world,” they added.

Honesty is another quality that earns the customers’ trust. What sets them apart from those authorized resellers commonly found in Burlington Arcade is that Kettle Kids only stocks watches that they believe to be valuable.

“First and foremost, we are huge watch fanatics and collectors. When we build the customer experience, we want them to feel the same about the watch as we do. A dealer has a commitment and loyalty to the brand that they’re selling. Even if it’s not the most ideal watch to purchase, they have to tell you that this is a great watch because they work for the brand,” they said.

“We work for ourselves. We could say: ‘Look, this is a beautiful watch. It’s not a great investment, but it looks great on you.’ We go back and forth until we find a sweet spot of where you want to be. If it’s a watch that you’re just buying for aesthetics, or if you want to buy an investment piece.

“Ultimately, we want the client to be happy. We want them to feel good when they purchase. We want them to come back. Most of the clientele we have now has been people who just come back for more and more. They get obsessed with it like we are and we go on the journey,” the Hutsons added.

Asked if Kettle Kids would be open to investment opportunities, the Hutson brothers said they plan to stay independent for now.

“We want to give our clients honest opinions, and not be biased to the brands that have the most margin. Also, we don’t want to be restricted in what we sell. When we speak to people, it’s just like, ‘We love that you’ve got such a diverse collection, and we can buy pretty much any watch we want, even though there’s a premium,’” they added.

Kettle Kids’ Most In-demand Timepieces

Here are the eight watches that are topping the wishlists of the London-based seller’s clients.