Worn & Wound
Watches and What Else: Kelly Haygarth Talks Women in Watches and Flips Us the Entrepreneurial Byrd
Kelly Haygarth, founder of Byrd Watch Co., is a tour de force. You will not find a more welcoming person who’s full of passion when it comes to bringing folks together in this hobby. I’ve been fortunate enough to hang out with Kelly and her husband, Peter, a few times and they’re both the life of the party. While this interview was full of laughs, Kelly definitely manages to exude a sense of community and takes time to get serious about what it means to be an entrepreneur in this space. Watches “My first real watch was this little 28mm Victorinox that Peter gifted me in 2013. I now realize this was his attempt at grooming me into the hobby,” Kelly told me. But, as she would later recall (and in spite of Peter’s grooming efforts), her love of watches began in earnest in 2019. “Peter grew up appreciating them [watches], and I never really understood. […] One day Peter called me and said he had found this Tag Heuer Carrera Twin Time, and I didn’t know what any of that meant. He found it in a pawn shop and it looked all grubby, and said it was $600. I was like WHAT?!?! How much?! On a watch?!” Kelly began laughing, “Wow. I think back to that innocence, and wow.” She went on to describe how Peter brought the watch home and disassembled it on their kitchen island and cleaned it to the point where it was beautiful. Kelly didn’t think much of it at first, but one day Peter asked if she wanted to wear it. “I didn’t take it off. It became my watch. ...
