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Report details death of Apple Watch’s “fashion ambition”

Let’s go back a little bit in time, back to 2015, and remember for a few moments of the launch of Apple Watch and his first months of life. Yes, things were quite different: unlike the “rational” product we have today, focused on simplifying the user’s life and improving their health and well-being, the Watch was, in its first months of life, a fashion accessory – and high fashion, judging by Apple’s ambitions and that ridiculous gold version that cost R $ 100 thousand.

So what happened halfway there? It is precisely the question that this report by New York Times seeks to answer. For this, journalist Vanessa Friedman sought information and opinions from experts inside and outside Apple.

It all started just before the launch of the Apple Watch, when Apple started making a series of signings of important names in the fashion world. Among them, we can mention Patrick Pruniaux, from TAG Heuer, Paul Deneve, from Yves Saint Laurent, and, of course, Angela Ahrendts, former CEO of Burberry who quickly became one of Apple’s most important executives. Now, they have all left (or are leaving, as is the case with Angela) from Cupertino.

During Angela’s reign, the launch of the Apple Watch was a circus packed with celebrities and places related to the fashion world. We had stores popup in centers fashion, such as Galeries Lafayette (in Paris) and Selfridges (in London); we had launch events with Karl Lagerfeld, Cara Delevingne and Mick Jagger; Apple collaborated with haute couture names like Azzedine Alaia to create special editions of the watch.

Today, Apple Watch advertising is focused on health / fitness and Apple focuses its marketing efforts on the cheapest models – the Edition version of the watch, which started out in gold and then metamorphosed into a (much cheaper) ceramic model, was completely extinguished in the fourth edition of the device.

THE NYT speculated that the strategy of introducing the Apple Watch into the fashion world it wasn’t exactly a mistake from Apple – the idea would be to put the watch in the mouth of the people and then, as the technology progressed and its name was already consolidated, leave this world aside to focus on its technological aspects.

As the New York University marketing professor said, Scott Galloway:

The overlay [entre tecnologia e moda] in the Venn diagram it is not as big as previously thought. Technology is basically about creating utilities and spreading them to billions of people. Fashion is about creating a moment, a trend, a romance, and spreading it to a small number of influential people.

Perhaps, therefore, Apple’s flirtation with the fashion world was nothing more than a sign that, at the time of launch, no one knew exactly what the Apple Watch was capable of or what it stood out (and, honestly, he didn’t excel at much). Today, with her skills much more defined and her name being formed, the Apple has all the comfort to look at the world of fashion in the rear view and to thank her “little help” in the early years of the watch.


Golden Apple Watch Series 4

Apple Watch Series 4

in Apple

Cash price: from R $ 3,599.10Installed price: up to 12x R $ 333.25Sizes: 40mm or 44mmMaterials: aluminum or stainless steelFeatures: GPS or GPS + CellularColors: diverseLaunch: September 2018

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via Cult of Mac