Apple Wants Into Fashion. What Has It Got Right, and What Has It Got Wrong?

38 Combinations, 16 Price Points, Official Leaks: Apple Remade Itself to Enter a New Market

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"Too much of the discussion has focused on the gold watch. To me, that's just one branch of the Apple Watch, aimed at people who won't consider a watch that costs less than five figures," Asymco founder Horace Dediu said on a recent podcast, commenting on the debate that followed the Apple Watch announcement.

It's true that when you think of the Apple Watch, the first thing that comes to mind may be the Apple Watch Edition, priced at 126,000 yuan. But even setting aside the gold edition made for a tiny few, the Apple Watch does not look like a typical tech product. Thirty-eight combinations of case and band span 16 price points; this is no ordinary complexity.

It is an unusual approach. Apple's product lines are broad today: the iPhone, the MacBook, the iPad and even the nearly vanished iPod each come in several sizes. But since Steve Jobs returned to Apple, every new product line has started with a single model. The iPhone offered a choice of colors only in its fourth year, and the iPhone 5c arrived only in its seventh. The iPad mini went on sale three and a half years after Apple redefined the tablet.

Before the Apple Watch, Apple kept its "complexity" mostly to accessories, such as the many cases for the iPhone and iPad. If you treat the Apple Watch's bands and cases as accessories, then the Apple Watch is not a complicated product after all: inside, every Apple Watch is the same.

The technology-company side of Apple has not changed. From the 2,588-yuan Sport to the 126,000-yuan Edition, every Apple Watch has a screen of exactly the same resolution, the same 8GB of storage and the same software. The Apple Watch is even more egalitarian than the iPhone, whose prices are separated by storage capacity.

Uniform specifications make life simpler for Apple Watch app developers. Whether the case is 18K gold, stainless steel or aluminum, and whichever band is fitted, makes no difference to them. Judged by the service ecosystem and app developers Apple depends on, and by what the hardware can do, the Apple Watch keeps Apple's habit of launching a new product as a single model. Yet this time is different.

This time, Apple is preparing to enter the fashion industry, and it seems to have prepared thoroughly.

Over the past two years, two luxury-goods CEOs have joined Apple, one to work on the Apple Watch and the other to run retail.

In the past month alone, Cook and Ive have given more interviews than Jobs gave in the four years after he launched the iPhone. In those interviews they have even revealed how Apple's retail stores will be remodeled to suit buyers of fashion products.

Is Apple doing all this for "one branch" with fatter margins? Or is the watch just an offshoot of the phone? Against this background, Dediu thinks the gold watch has drawn too much attention. At heart, Apple is still making electronics, and the future it wants is one in which digital services are no farther away than a raise of the wrist.

Convenience is what let the phone replace the personal computer as the center of our computing. Now Apple is trying to carry that shift onto the wrist: tap your wrist and an Uber pulls up beside you; pay at the supermarket by turning your wrist to touch the register; check into a hotel without collecting a key card and open your door with your watch; at the airport, you no longer need to remember to dig out your phone and find a digital boarding pass, because it is already on the screen.

As early as 2012, Apple tried to reach into the most basic parts of your daily life with Passbook. It failed, because people never got into the habit of pulling out and unlocking their phones at every shop. The convenience Passbook offered did not make up for the hassle of using it.

If wearable devices are to take root in daily life, rather than remain toys that let geeks show off as early adopters, they need to be easier to use than a smartphone. The Apple Watch is Apple's answer to how wearables should be done.

But Apple is thinking about more than the next generation of computing devices. It also means to enter the fashion industry. That's right: it is looking to fashion for inspiration, people and media, and playing by fashion's rules. Apple is not out to disrupt the fashion industry; it wants to join it.

In 2012, Switzerland alone exported 29.2 million watches, and the people who buy them have clearly caught Apple's eye. For people used to wearing a watch, an aluminum case and a plastic band may not be enough, just as you cannot expect someone who goes to work every day in a dress shirt and slacks to wear Nike sneakers, even smart ones.

Ariel Adams, founder of the well-known watch site aBlogtoWatch, said that, unlike other smartwatches, the Apple Watch has a design that fits traditional luxury-watch aesthetics and will catch the eye of old-school buyers, and that it does more, and more conveniently, than a traditional watch: "Obviously, watches under $1,000 will be hit the hardest, and companies that sell fashion watches in department stores will be first in line."

Courting watch buyers the way a fashion brand does promises plainly higher margins. Apple would much rather watch the markets keep pushing up its market value. How else would Cook prove he has succeeded?

Yang Xi, a senior interaction designer at the design firm Frog, told QDaily that the Apple Watch looks quite traditional, even retro, but he does not see that as a problem. He singled out the digital crown: "Apple could easily have made a watch with no traditional buttons," and the crown is there because of "the market and the users Apple has chosen."

You could read it as a tribute. Apple genuinely envies this industry, its high added value and its high profits.

To Sell Watches, Apple Hired a Crowd From the Luxury Industry

YSL CEO Paul Deneve

From 2013, Apple brought in several executives from the fashion industry. The first was Paul Deneve, CEO of the luxury house YSL. Deneve joined in September as head of "special projects," reporting directly to Cook; the project is widely believed to be the Apple Watch. Joining at the same time was Enrique Atienza, a senior vice president at Levi's, who runs most of Apple's retail stores in the Americas.

That October, another luxury executive, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, joined Apple as senior vice president of retail, entering the company's inner leadership circle.

Then, in August 2014, Apple hired Patrick Pruniaux, retail vice president of TAG Heuer, a brand owned by LVMH, the world's largest luxury group, as a senior director within "special projects."

In the concentric-circle management structure Apple inherited from the Jobs era, executives usually reach the inner circle only after several years, or even more than a decade, at the company. Ahrendts was the first executive to land at the center on arrival. The appointment also shows how seriously Apple takes the Apple Watch's push into fashion.

A First: A Supermodel on Stage at an Apple Event

Supermodel Christy Turlington on stage at the event (image from NYDailyNews)

For its big September 2014 event, Apple moved from its usual venue, Yerba Buena, to the more spacious Flint Center. Before the event, reporters from a number of fashion publications received invitations, a first for Apple.

Soon afterward, Apple teamed up with Colette, the Paris fashion boutique, for a one-day Apple Watch showcase. Colette, which opened in 1997, is probably the best-known independent store in the world, its shelves filled with limited-edition luxury goods.

This time the Apple Watch, like the luxury goods before it, was carefully arranged in windows and display cases. The arrangement was the work of Marc Newson, a well-known designer, a friend of Jony Ive and a recent Apple hire. Apple also invited two fashion heavyweights, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld.

On March 9, supermodel Christy Turlington, named one of TIME's 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, appeared at Apple's spring event to vouch for the Apple Watch.

At earlier Apple launches, the only people besides Apple employees given that honor were executives of partner companies, usually their CEOs. This was the first time an individual had been invited to promote a new Apple product.

Almost Unheard Of: Executives Give Interview After Interview

Tim Cook being interviewed by the German paper BILD before the Apple Watch announcement

After the iPhone launched, Jobs, apart from two appearances at AllThingsD's D conference, gave only three media interviews: one while on vacation and two brief television appearances. Other Apple executives also kept out of sight and rarely gave interviews.

The Apple Watch changed all that. Over the past year, Ive has given interviews to four publications, TIME, the Financial Times, Vogue and The New Yorker, with no attempt to hide his Essex accent. In the issue of The New Yorker that went on sale before the Apple event, Ive even revealed the new design of Apple's retail stores ahead of time.

Cook has not been idle either. Before the March event, he himself revealed new features in an interview with Britain's Telegraph, saying the Apple Watch would be able to replace car keys and open doors.

Where each Apple product goes on sale has always been a secret, except for the Apple Watch. In late February, Cook told staff at an Apple Store in Germany that the new watch would go on sale outside the United States in April, instead of launching only in the US as the iPhone and iPad did. In early March, the news appeared on the Apple rumor site 9to5mac.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services, even wore an Apple Watch to the Warriors' home arena before the event to show off how to pay with it.

Letting the Fashion Press Try the Watch First

Vogue's November 2014 issue, with the Apple Watch on the cover

In the past, Apple aimed its media push at two kinds of outlets: specialist tech sites such as Engadget and The Verge, and general-interest media with a wider audience, such as The New York Times. Reporters on Apple's short media list would get devices that had been announced but not yet released, and publish their reviews the day before the product went on sale.

This time, though, the people who got the Apple Watch early were not reporters but the models on fashion-magazine covers.

And of all fashion magazines, Vogue was without doubt the one that worked most closely with Apple.

So it was that the cover of the November 2014 issue of Vogue China showed supermodel Liu Wen wearing an 18K gold Apple Watch, which set the watch off on its flirtatious "tour among the flowers." Timed with Apple's spring event, the March issues of the French and American editions of Vogue again gave the Apple Watch big spreads, with the French edition calling it "a small revolution."

Beyond Vogue, the Apple Watch has turned up in other fashion magazines, such as Self and Britain's Style. Notably, besides the Chinese edition of Vogue, it has also appeared on the covers of the Hong Kong magazine East Touch and the mainland fashion magazine Yoho! Style.

That is not all. According to the latest reports, Jony Ive and Marc Newson, the Apple Watch's designers, will attend the first Condé Nast International Luxury Conference, hosted by Vogue international editor Suzy Menkes, in Florence in April. Condé Nast is one of the world's largest fashion-magazine publishers; its titles include Vogue and GQ, and The New Yorker as well.

Apple Stores Are Even Getting VIP Areas

Rendering of a remodeled Apple retail store (image from iMore)

Beyond its fashion push in marketing, Apple is even redesigning its retail stores for the Apple Watch. Ahrendts, the former Burberry CEO, is leading these changes.

As early as the start of February, reports said Apple's stores would be remodeled in time for the Apple Watch launch, and that the most striking change would be a new display table. Instead of the old long, flat natural-wood tables with iPhones and iPads propped up on stands, the table designed for the Apple Watch has a large recessed area in the middle, with soft lighting around it to show off the watches.

In an interview with The New Yorker in late February, Jony Ive explained why Apple stores need a VIP area: he had heard someone say, "If there's no carpet under my feet, I'm not even going to consider buying a watch."

Beyond these physical changes, Apple has also put a lot of effort into how its staff look, for example by redesigning their uniforms. The new uniforms use better fabric, and the Apple logo has shrunk slightly, which is said to make them look more upscale.

Staff will also be trained differently, including in a written method for selling the Apple Watch. Unlike ordinary consumer electronics, the Apple Watch needs a new way of selling, so Apple drew up "three core features":

• Find out what customers already know, and tell them how the Apple Watch will enrich their lives.

• Make sure their iPhone and Apple Watch work together, and explain how seamlessly the watch and phone fit together.

• Discover their personal style, and learn their needs, tastes and preferred materials.

As Gary Allen, who studies Apple's retail stores, put it in Forbes, the stores need to prove that the Apple Watch is worth buying, just as they once did for the iPad.

Now a Luxury Giant Is About to Emerge

Getting the Apple Watch to remake an industry as the iPhone did and take root in our lives, and selling it the way a fashion brand would, is only the beginning.

Apple's real challenge is getting developers to build enough genuinely useful apps. And a handful of apps will not do: the Apple Watch also needs carmakers, airlines, retailers and every other industry that touches your daily life to play along. That will be a harder job than launching the iPhone.

If Apple cannot pull this off, the Apple Watch may turn out to be just another iPad. Perhaps even that is optimistic: it may be just another Newton.