“I wasn’t as happy as I knew I could be,” says Colleen Tuohy, founder and owner of Wyatt Outdoors—an apparel line for women where fashion and function form the perfect match. “I wasn’t really sure what my next chapter was but I knew this wasn’t going to be my last one.”
Colleen is on a trip down memory lane, recounting her every move—and there are many—between owning her own pet boutique to working at Kemo Sabe (a high-end western wear store) and then Ralph Lauren in Aspen, Colorado, to New York City to the Catskill Mountains, and eventually to Montana where Wyatt Outdoors came to full fruition at the place where the initial inspiration was born: the Resort at Paws Up during the cowgirl roundup, an annual weekend event hosted by the resort each spring. Even though working at Ralph Lauren had captured about 15 years of her career in the client experience and retail, she knew more was afoot.
“I took my life off-road, literally,” she says, arriving at the part of her story where she set up a wall tent on her brother’s hay farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York, just a few heel clicks north of where her very corporate-centric life took place in Manhattan, after resigning from Ralph Lauren to start over at age 47. Her apartment in the West Village was traded for canvas walls and a crackling fire.
“It was good living,” says Colleen, candidly, when taking a look at the contrasting lives she’s lived. “My treat at the end of every night was to plug my lamp on my side table into the Jackery (battery powered generator) and I would have a few minutes of being able to read at night…I built my fire and that’s where Wyatt was designed and created. lived in that for almost seven months.”
And who is Wyatt? “Wyatt—she was my muse,” says Colleen. “She’s a piece of all of the gals I’ve met along the way who’ve inspired my vision and my designs and my confidence. She’s wise beyond her years. Her kindness inspires others and she’s courageous. Her courage gives her the confidence to lead the way for all of us gals…Wyatt is for women who build their own fire.”
It’s no surprise that the client experience is at the heart of Colleen’s creative career. She credits her time at Kemo Sabe as life changing—a pivotal moment that gave meaning to the work that was done there. “It was magic, what they created. Embracing the spirit of the West,” says Colleen. “When I put a warm hat on somebody’s head and saw the smile come across their face—that was the feeling that I knew that I wanted to take with me wherever I went.” Which is why she says that smiles are guaranteed with purchase of any Wyatt piece. Her product is heirloom quality, made to be worn sun to stars, from a day on the river to dinner afterward. Quality over quantity.
She loves to fish and ride but she didn’t love that there wasn’t a shirt that could do it all. “If there was, it never fit great. It was never cute, and I was never excited to spend my money on it. But I bought it because I had to, not because I wanted to,” says Colleen. This frustration went on for a decade before she had the courage to fill the void. “Why can’t we have a shirt that we can wear from sun to stars that fits us great and looks great and makes us feel good?… When someone puts on a Wyatt piece and they smile from the inside out, that’s what builds my confidence. But it’s courage that got me here.”
While Colleen mazes through her journey of paved and dirt roads to now—living in Livingston, having her own line at the Wilderness Outpost at the Resort at Paws Up (which is open to the public)—she reflects on the emotional journey as well, expressing how grateful she was to have been in that place—the figurative place of not being quite comfortable. “My trip to Montana sparked joy. It reminded me of what happiness felt like. For whatever reason, it called me.”
Her story has smaller stories woven in—scenic routes, really—like the story of the Darrell Ranch Jacket. It’s soft, durable, and made from 100% Austrian wool, cut and sewn by hand in America. “Hat to hat, steamer to steamer,” says Colleen when describing her time working with Gina at Kemo Sabe, shaping hats for clients. “Her folks were friends with a cowboy named Darrell.” And Darrell became the Marlboro Man, putting a face to the spirit of the cowboy and selling it to American men and women. Colleen says to her friend, “Gina, one day you’ll be the Darrell to my Wyatt. It’s an ode to my best pal Gina who went out of her way to support me along the way.” Her friend-turned-family was there to welcome her and her initial inventory of shirts when Colleen was freshly resigned from Ralph Lauren, ripe with a dream and the product to make it a reality. Gina posed for marketing photos and her mother snapped the camera. “My dream is that that jacket just continues to collect stories along the way,” says Colleen, noting how important it is that her product has the quality to last our generation and the next.
“It’s for women who light their own fire, who prefer dirt roads to paved,” says Colleen. It was this devotion to character and creation that brought her Wyatt story full circle to the Resort at Paws Up with a whole line of shirts for every Wyatt gal who walked through the door. “It wasn’t confidence, it was courage,” says Colleen. “It was a huge dose of courage.”
What to Wear Wyatt? Shop WyattOutdoors.com.
“My trip to Montana sparked joy. It reminded me of what happiness felt like. For whatever reason, it called me.”
“Why can’t we have a shirt that we can wear from sun to stars that fits us great and looks great and makes us feel good?"