EXCLUSIVE: Kendra Scott Launches In-house Watches Line
When Kendra Scott sets her mind to something, there’s no one who can convince her otherwise. The entrepreneur, philanthropist and jewelry designer revealed Monday that she is launching a line of watches.
The line of three watch styles, plus three strap options that affix to an Apple Watch, are unique not only for their designs, but the process behind them. Rather than sign a license deal with a specialty watchmaking company — like, say Fossil — as is the industry norm, Scott decided to take matters into her own hands. Her company spent years researching the watchmaking process and hiring experts to have greater ownership over the launch — designing and producing the watches in-house.
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“We are very engaged and involved in the design process [of everything we do], for us every detail matters. People joke I am crazy about the littlest details, like I look a lot at the back of the earring or pendant even — those are things that matter to us. When we were designing the watch collection, we did it in the exact same way. We wanted to put something out there that surprised and delighted our customers and for that, we wanted to take this in-house and own that process,” Scott told WWD.
Now the line, which takes inspiration from Scott’s own watch wish list, will be released into the brand’s stable of 120 stores nationwide as well as its website starting Wednesday.
The designer said she wanted the watches to represent a certain duality — mixing the special, glitzy touch that jewelry offers with a certain masculinity that she loves when wearing a more classic oversize watch style.
“We wanted to have a marriage of masculine and feminine — instead of having a round face to have more designs. I also wanted to create bands that are compatible with the Apple Watch as well to have that variety. That’s how we live our life and I think about the customer’s fashion statement day and normal life day to come at it from both perspectives,” Scott said.
Courtesy/Kendra Scott
“This is very close to our wheelhouse, we are not going so far like launching a clothing line,” she added. “This is really close to what we do, the materials we are using are the materials in our jewelry, this was a natural and organic next category for us and we are excited to take on that challenge.”
The line pulls from classic Kendra Scott jewelry motifs by incorporating semiprecious stones and materials. One watch she highlighted features an abalone shell face, a feature she once had custom-made because she could not find a watch in the market like that.
“We love colored natural gemstones and incorporated those materials into this collection. Many years ago, I had a watch custom-made with an abalone face on it because I wanted an abalone face and it was not something I could find.
“It was fun to create something using abalone, turquoise and mother-of-pearl. We were thoughtful about how to create something using the highest-quality products and it was many years in the making — this is not an overnight collection. We wanted to make beautiful timepieces that you have to pull out of your jewelry box for many years to come,” Scott said.
The watches are priced from $198 to $328 and Apple Watch straps go from $128 to $148, a range that Scott said “are not inexpensive but they are at an attainable price point so you can get something you feel really great about.”
For Scott, watches offer a sense of wholesome nostalgia that she thinks will continue trending.
“I think we’ve gone through the last two years of the pandemic and it’s this snow globe moment for the whole world to reset. We were going at such a pace prior to the pandemic at a very high level. Time is truly something that got away from us and now we have an opportunity to take a pause and I think that comes with a bit of nostalgia,” she said.
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