When Apple revealed its highly anticipated watch, the company veered from its traditional design ethos: Instead of presenting one gleaming industrial design for the masses, it provided dozens. You can get your Apple Watch in space gray aluminum, stainless steel, or 18-karat rose gold, with one of many bands, easily swapped thanks to a clever snap-on, snap-off clasp.
If none of those options satisfy, discerning sartorialists can feast their imaginations on these high-fashion fantasy models. Created by designer Finz Lo for High Snobiety, they show what the Apple Watch might look like if Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Alexander Wang and the like joined the fun.
They're a fun bit of speculative design, but they could hint at what's to come. After hiring executives from some of the biggest names in fashion, Apple could be ready to explore new approaches to how it brands and sells its new watch---and who it partners with to do so.
To create the concepts, Lo studied the heritage of the various fashion lines. The Chanel watch mimics the gold interlocking chain the brand has used for years; the Louis Vuitton leather strap comes from its famous luggage. The Alexander Wang design is, “all-black, to keep things minimal, with a touch of gold and a marble print along the band,” Lo says, and the Maison Martin Margiela watch has an "avant garde aesthetic style, by flipping the traditional dial with the bare essentials," essentially making it a bracelet watch. The Givenchy watch has what Lo calls a "tried-and-trued robotic print."
Good looks aside, Lo’s work highlights how easy it could be for outside designers to contribute their own aesthetic sensibility to the Apple Watch. It also showcases the versatility of the watch's design. Its bezel is pared down enough to blend in well with both Chanel and Alexander Wang's distinct styles.
The experiment raises the question: Now that Apple has entered the high-end jewelry market, how will it handle relationships with fashion designers? (And it is the high end market it's entering---many are speculating that the gold edition could cost upward of $5,000). While designer partnerships could offer the opportunity to expand the watch's look and thus its appeal, Apple stands to make a killing on its own bands, which by all accounts are incredibly high quality themselves. Adding a bevy of name-brand options could cannibalize sales---but also could lead to an incredibly lucrative revenue-sharing arrangement, a la iTunes.
There are a number of partnership approaches Apple could take. It could encourage anyone and everyone to design bands for the watch, just like anyone can design a case for the iPhone. It could establish something like the Made for iPhone licensing program, requiring third-party bands to go through all sorts of documentation and testing before geting an official stamp of approval. It could pick a few partners to work with, and gradually expand offerings. Or it could keep the lineup limited to the bands it's meticulously crafted.
Apple's spate of fashion-world hires over the last two years invites this sort of speculation. Last year, it named former Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts as its chief of retail. Before that, Apple hired former Yves Saint Lauren CEO Paul Deneve. Recently, it was reported that Deneve will bring the companys European president and retail lead Catherine Monier with him.
Apple didn't need these experts to build a watch. But they will need them to sell it. The influx of fashion industry talent suggests Apple's keen to understand how luxury goods are marketed and sold---potentially in venues beyond the Apple Store itself. The new high-fashion brain trust inside Apple has experience growing luxury brands without diluting them. It also means that Apple now has deep ties into some of the fashion world's biggest names, should it decide to go looking for partners.
