PARIS: Apple has made every effort to convince the fashion world that the Apple Watch is the next stylish accessory.
Supermodel Christy Turlington Burns became the timepiece’s highest profile advocate from the fashion world when she joined CEO Tim Cook onstage in San Francisco. And the company has made a big publicity push in Paris, giving style heavyweights Karl Lagerfeld, Anna Wintour and model Karlie Kloss an advance preview ahead of a display last fall at the Paris boutique Colette.
For all of the glitz surrounding the watch’s introduction, the multi-tasking timepiece was met in the fashion world Monday with a yawn.
Members of the style establishment, in Paris for shows from the glittering likes of Chanel, Givenchy and Hermes mostly said they saw the watch as a gadget, not this season’s must-have accessory.
Model Julia Van Os dismissed the new device in an interview with Reuters after working the Stella McCartney show inside the ornate Opera house.
“I haven’t heard anyone talking about it,” said the Dutch model. “It’s a different world; it’s more technology rather than fashion. People don’t wear that kind of watch in fashion.”
A salesman at the famed department store Printemps agreed, saying his store won’t carry the watch, which will range in price from $350 to more than $10,000 for the high-end Apple Watch Edition in 18-karat gold.
“You have to understand. We are luxury brands, and the Apple Watch is, more technology,” said the salesman at Printemps, which carries such brands as Rolex, Montblanc and Longines.
Apple’s new timepiece, which will go on sale in April, links to a wearer’s iPhone, and can display messages, alerts and appointments, among other things. An array of apps can track fitness, arrange a car with Uber, and even open a garage door remotely. The rectangular watch face display can be changed by the user to feature a range of styles, from Mickey Mouse pointing his hands at the time to a simple digital clock.
French newspapers put coverage of Monday’s Apple watch unveiling on their business pages, reserving their popular glossy fashion pages for the winter runway shows and ads for luxurious items such as watches by Bulgari and Boucheron.
Luxury consultant Robert Burke, who is based in New York but is currently in Paris for the shows, said the Apple watch simply “hasn’t resonated strongly” in the fashion world.
“Apple has notably been targeting the fashion world leading up to its launch, but the watch still has an inherently tech focused sensibility,” Burke said. “The tech world and the watch world are very different,” he added. “While there’s certainly a novelty and attraction to the [Apple Watch], so far it has appealed more so to the early tech adopters.”
Nevertheless, he added, the company’s push could pay off.
“Their message to the fashion world has definitely become more focused over the past few weeks,” he said. “It’s evident that they’ve been fine tuning their strategy.”
