“The tech world is infatuated with fashion,” Leslie Price writes for Racked. “This is because fashion has something tech seriously wants: the ability to create and sustain demand for products that are—let’s face it—kind of useless.”
“The luxury fashion world, on the other hand, has yet to warm to technology. Yes, there are designers that lend their names to wearables (for a good price, most likely) and there are fashion executives being recruited to work at the Amazons and Apples of the world (for great salaries, I’m sure),” Price writes. “But at the biggest fashion houses in Europe, there is a general disdain for the connected future that the tech world fetishizes.”
“Apple has hired fashion world talents, poaching top execs from Saint Laurent, Gap, Burberry, and Tag Heuer. It arranged for a high-profile preview at noted Paris boutique Colette attended by Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour. It got the watch on the cover of Vogue China. According to leaked documents, the company’s recruiting salespeople with fashion backgrounds to staff Apple stores,” Price writes. “But as The Verge reports, it was Apple fanboys who lined up to view the watch at Colette, not the fashion cognoscenti. As one Colette shopper told the site, “I don’t think people who are fashionable are particularly techie—they’re fashion-forward. I just think this is a nuisance.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple understands fashion perfectly.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
What Leslie Price doesn’t understand is Apple or its influence.
Patek isn’t going anywhere, but Apple Watch will sell well. Only time shows how well. All else is BS.
Why does Fashion have “cognoscenti” while those in-the-know about Apple-related technology are described as “fanboys”. Do authors think this is cute, or are they knowingly denigrating a group of people.
When in doubt, drag out the cliche’, I guess
Both.
Good point. From now on, let’s be Cognoscenti.
Yet, these luxury fashion elite are still using the rotory phone, pen and paper, notebooks, and god forbid, they have to give up that for the pager. Because none of these “luxury fashion” conscious use a smart phone, computer, flat screen TV, projectors, or networks in there daily life. Geez, they are still be using the carrier pigeon and never will be forced to use that silly technology of the phone. They know fashiion and fashion is not technology.
Fashion is limited only by what one believes it to be…
The tech world does not understand fashion one but fortunately the fashion world understands the tech world. What this means for MDN is obvious, there will be women posters here, more than one. They will all be as wonderful as glendalough or hannahjs but there will be many of them.
It is also why you’ll see big names in the fashion business, BIG NAMES adding their support to the watch ring phone. It’s half watch, half phone and half ring.
Look there goes one now, an phone watch ring. It’s half phone, half ring and half watch. Oh no there’s a Papperotting, it’s going to take a people. Oh it’s already leaked out on the net.
The top, elite, “fashion-forward” people are not Apple’s target market. But Apple understands completely the need to position the Watch as a fashionable accessory while being incredibly useful to the average Joe. That’s because people have largely stopped wearing watches since they have their iPhones on them to have a clock, alarms, calculator, etc. So Apple is making it cool to wear a watch again, which is why the Watch doesn’t look like something from Samsung or Texas Instruments.
Apple understands fashion. The iPod came out they made the body and headphones white while the rest of the music players were black. This way people would know you had a iPod. Then they added colors to the small versions. Every year, until last, they came out with a new model, something unheard of in the music player business. The backlit logo on the MacBooks make them stand out in a room. Apple controls the look of where their products are sold, even in Wal-Mart.
The watch industry has been more about function than fashion. The wrist watch become popular because it was easer for WWI soldiers to use than pocket watches. Casio and Timex were not fashion statements, yet they were the top sellers. People stopped buying watches when they already had clocks on their desk, nightstand, phone, TV, stove, microwave, wall, computer, dashboard and the list goes on. Instead they started whereing big rubber bands as fashion statements.
Apple understands fashion. That is why they have three styles, three price point, and two sizes. They also know a watch will need to do a lot more than tell time before people start buying them again.
Sure it will take some time for the ” fashion Snobs” to get their heads out of the clouds…
But most people are not “fashion Snobs” ….
It’s the “incredibly useful” part that’s a problem. I have a client, an attorney who specializes in certain types of cases and she is a fashion freak. Back when the iPhone 5c came out she was livid that it looked exactly the same as the 5. She explained to me that it had nothing to do with the improved technology, for her it was all about fashion. People had to know she was using the latest iPhone. She is of course using a gold 6 plus now, as it stands out.
She has zillions of watches. Most not very expensive. They are fashion accessories. When she looks at the Apple Watch, she says it’s ugly and there’s no way she would wear one and that functionality wise, she has no interest in the device.
So my guess is that the phone will sell to the gadget curious at first, and then Peter out until some killer app shows up. Or the apps will,evolve over time until it does so much it makes more sense to have one than not.
It’s definitely a device I have no use for at the moment but will definitely be watching.
I don’t care about fashion, much, but even I’m disappointed that it’s not round.
Ohhh….But she will wear it when it becomes a fashion statment..
And that it will !
2nd.. Fashion and beauty are not the same thing !
3rd .. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder !
4th .. Function will be appreciated once there is exposure !
And as for the round shape..
I would not be at all surprised if apple adds different designs to the lineup down the line !
I thinkk Apple know more about fashion than the writer and infinitely more about making desirable objects. From Vanity Fair : “Ive is the son of an English silversmith, and Newson, who grew up in Australia, studied jewelry design and sculpture; both were raised to value craft above all.”