Wearable tech: an inside look at Apple and Hermès’ perfect marriage
Fashion and technology once made strange bedfellows, but the Apple-Hermès smartwatch collaboration is proof that has changed
Doing something new doesn’t matter at Apple, says its chief design officer, Jonathan Ive. “Creating something that’s new is very easy – we can do that in half an hour. So rather than pursue newness, we make something that is better,” says Ive. “If we do manage to make something that’s better that solves a problem that it didn’t before, by consequence it’s new. Newness should be consequential to something that is bigger and more important.”
It’s September, and we are sitting in a quiet room above the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, in San Francisco, where Apple’s greatest minds have just unveiled its latest products to the world.
While collaborations between fashion and tech brands are growing by the day, it’s often said the two industries make strange bedfellows. Take, for instance, the exclusive keynote presentation I’ve just attended – considered a Mecca for tech geeks in much the same way as fashion week catwalks are for style aficionados.
In place of coiffed celebrities, lining the front row are programmers, technology reporters and Silicon Valley executives. The dress code is strictly casual: polo shirts, jeans and trainers. There’s not a hint of glamour or a high heel in sight. The auditorium, accommodating about 7,000 people (the average fashion show audience might stretch to 700), is jam-packed. And the proceedings are live-streamed to tens of millions around the world.