These kids want to sell you a second-hand Rolex
Meet the new-gen dealers on the pre-owned watch scene
It is no secret that since the pandemic-bubble market burst, things have not been quite so easy in the watch industry. I called the peak of the steel-sports-watch market in the summer of 2022, as rampant speculation led to prices that were simply unsustainable. Fuelled by social media then turbocharged by restricted supply, as Swiss factories rearranged production under Covid, watches were no longer perceived as objects of aesthetic and mechanical interest – they became a currency or commodity to be traded like Crypto. Now the helium high is gone and we are left with the comedown. The December bulletin on exports from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, headlined “Sharp Contraction”, says it all.
Not the best time to be opening a 4,500sq ft pre-owned watch shop on Old Bond Street, you would have thought. But then you and I probably do not think in the same way as the Hutson brothers, better known to their 250,000-plus Instagram followers as the Kettle Kids. This fraternal duo, Harvey, 29, and Jacob, 27, is one of a number of watch dealers opening new premises in London this year, demonstrating a confidence in the pre-owned market. It’s a confidence boosted also by the decision of Rolex, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin to launch certified pre-owned programmes.
The Kettle Kids are a phenomenon. The inventory, so temptingly showcased on Instagram in videos of wrist rolls that show the play of light over the fluted bezel of a Rolex Day-Date or catch the glint of a Royal Oak’s gemset bezel, may be blue chip but their shtick is certainly not. For as long as I can remember, watch traders have sought to gentrify a commercial activity sometimes viewed as a junior branch of second-hand car dealing. The Kettle Kids, however, have actively cultivated a sarf-London-geezer image that is all “wheelin ’n’ dealin”. As Harvey explains: “Kettle and hob is a Cockney slang for Fob.” “In south London the youngsters call watches ‘kettles,’” adds Jacob helpfully.
The Kettle Kids are the stars of their own Guy Ritchie rags-to-riches fairytale. It was 2016. Harvey was working in a carwash, and Jacob was an apprentice tiler on a building site, when, with the help of a loan of a grand from their beloved nan (there is always a benign matriarch in this sort of story), they doubled their money on three Cartier Must 21s and decided that there was more money in pre-owned watches.
“Back then our customers were friends,” says Harvey, “then after we ran out of friends, we went on Instagram.” In 2017 they registered Kettle Kids as a limited company. “We had a very good Covid… and then it got insane.” From a business built on social media (they also have a website where you can sign up to their Members’ Club for their catalogue and updates) they’ve moved into doing pop-ups in department stores, they are developing a line of jewellery, they are cultivating ambassadors for the new store and they have worked on artist collaborations with Blek le Rat and 24-year-old artist and designer Olaolu Slawn.
Forget MBAs, business plans, forecasts and focus groups. As for a business model? “To be honest, we just roll with it,” says Harvey, and to judge from their Richard Mille watches [a Bubba Watson RM 055 for Harvey and a Rafael Nadal RM 35-02 for his brother] it seems to have worked thus far. They tap into a younger section of the watch-collecting diaspora that has perhaps found the idea of crossing the threshold of big brand maisons, auction houses and established vintage dealers somewhat inimical. “When you think of jewellery and watches it is an older thing,” says Jacob, “There haven’t actually been, like, two younger guys who have started a business and taken it to the next level and inspired the younger generation.” They’re seeing most demand for vintage Cartier and all models of Patek Philippe.
They opened their first store on Maddox Street in 2023. Now, just two years later they are moving into a four-storey building on Old Bond Street, formerly the A Lange & Söhne shop, just between Valentino and Vacheron Constantin, across the road from Richard Mille. It is a source of considerable pride: “Old Bond Street for us is the pinnacle. If you’re going to sell a watch to the best collectors or enthusiasts in the world, they’re most likely going to be on Old Bond Street,” says Harvey. “We just took a 20-year lease. To be accepted on Old Bond Street we’ve had to go for a lot of interviews and jump through a lot of hoops, just checking us out, background checks, our goals, ambitions.” They plan to open a service and restoration centre on the top floor. The building will also house their offices, a well-stocked cellar and an entertainment space.
Across town, Subdial Collector’s Lounge is opening over two floors of a building on Farringdon Road, the first physical manifestation of the online dealing and trading platform founded in 2018. The look is exposed brickwork, prominent ducting and steel joists. “Online is fine, but there is no substitute for real people buying, selling or just talking about watches, ideally while having a few drinks. It just seemed like a natural evolution of the business,” says its head of commercial, Tim Green.
Where the Kettle Kids have their charm, engaging manner, and of course their youth, Subdial’s difference is data. Lots and lots of data. “I think our reliance on up-to-date data is what makes us different,” says Green. “We scrape data from multiple locations, multiple times a day, and it gives us real visibility on what watches are being listed, what watches are being sold, how long they’ve taken to sell, the condition rating, etc. So we’re able to understand exactly how we should be pricing our watches to sell, but also what we should be buying.
“Breguet is having a real moment. Partly I think this is due to optimism spurred on by the new CEO, Gregory Kissling, formerly of Omega. But also because vintage and pre-owned Breguet presents such an undeniable value proposition right now; haute horlogerie, precious metals, all from a historic brand, at an attractive price. It’s a brand to watch in 2025.”
In a former life he was a management consultant at Ernst & Young, as were Subdial co-founders Christy Davis and Ross Crane, and this analytical background has given their business a unique flavour. “We have a partnership with Bloomberg with whom we created the Subdial x Bloomberg Index and it tracks the top 50 most traded watches in the world, which are typically Rolex and Pateks. We have tracked those values over the course of the past four years, which gives a baseline point to tell you whether the market is in good health or bad health. It helps us provide information to asset managers and to wealth managers so they can better understand the health of the industry from the perspective of investing in alternative assets. If you look at the past four years you’ll see a pretty depressing curve. But we’re starting to see that curve lift again. I think people are increasingly confident that prices have hit a natural sort of level.”
Danny Pizzigoni, founder of The Watch Club on Royal Arcade off Old Bond Street, agrees. Counterintuitively, a bubble market is bad for business. “It’s now a lot better. When the prices were so spiky, it was difficult to get any watches to change hands. People were terrified of selling their watches for too little. No one wanted to buy a watch because they were worried that the prices were too high. Now things have stabilised.”
Pizzigoni opened Royal Arcade Watches in 1996. About 10 years later he rebranded as The Watch Club. He chose the name to signal a more relaxed and comfortable space for a like-minded community to meet and buy watches, but feels that today’s serious collectors want more. “A watch shop is nice but the goalposts have moved,” he says of his acquisition of a first-floor salon, formerly an art gallery designed by David Chipperfield and redesigned by Dimorestudio, on Albemarle Street, which will open in early summer. There, he plans to present pieces from his personal collection or high-value rarities that cannot be truly appreciated online or in a busy shop. “It would not feel right presenting a Rolex Oyster Sotto Paul Newman or a first series 2499 Patek next to a client who has just popped in for a strap change.”
Collectors, says Pizzigoni, “are now seeking ‘sleeper’ models from historical brands like Vacheron Constantin and Audemars Piguet that have great investment potential. Daniel Roth, early Franck Mullers and even newer brands like Parmigiani Fleurier also have that independent flavour that collectors are desperate for.”
He welcomes the Kettle Kids: “When I saw their shop in Maddox Street, it wasn’t a standard shopfit. It was a serious job that made me stop and look. Of course I want to see them do well… because that means the pre-owned and vintage watch market is healthy and strong.”