Here's Why Apple's Hiring of A Fashion CEO Makes Perfect Sense

If wearable computing is the future, the recent hire by Apple of Paul Deneve, the 53-year-old CEO of fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, is brilliant.  Deneve actually did a seven year stint at Apple from 1990 to 1997 in the sales and marketing department in Europe, which if you’re familiar with Apple’s past wasn’t the most prolific time in Apple, Inc. history.  Nonetheless, Mr. Deneve is back now and will be reporting directly to Tim Cook on “special projects.”

So what could these special projects be?  I’m betting wearable computing devices.  The iWatch perhaps?  Maybe there are other wearable devices in the pipeline or maybe Deneve has some ideas of his own.  Deneve’s background in marketing luxury fashion goods could potentially translate well into marketing the “luxury” tech products of the world (e.g. Apple products).  As I eluded to in a previous post, how do you make the smart watch or any wearable device appeal to all types of people?  Fashion items are typically very personal purchases, everyone likes different things and has different tastes in clothes and jewelry.  And when you get down to it a watch (of any kind) is a fashion piece, as are a pair of glasses.

And then you have to factor in the whole gender thing, men and women have different expectations for their fashion items, just look at how different traditional women’s clothes, watches, and glasses are from their male counterparts.  This could be a real headache to a bunch of geeks creating the latest and greatest tech gadget.  Or maybe it won’t be with a fashion expert onboard.

Which is exactly where I’m guessing Mr. Deneve will be able to offer some excellent advice.

Let’s not kid ourselves here, despite Google doing some awesome things with Google Glass, you really have to wonder whether or not every day (non-super techie) people will ever wear it.  It may be the future, but certainly not in its current form.