For Apple, gold is the new black with Apple Watch being the company’s latest release in a string innovative products. It effectively enters Apple into the luxury fashion industry – garnering media attention from fashion capitals like New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Milan, and now Vancouver by way of The Pinnacle List.
Born out of Steve Jobs’ garage in 1976, Apple has introduced groundbreaking innovative products throughout the years, with no signs of letting up. It began with Macintosh in 1984, continued with iPod in 2001 with iTunes, then to iMac in 2003, MacBook in 2006, Apple TV and the one-of-a-kind iPhone smartphone in 2007, and the new-age iPad tablet that Jobs proudly unveiled in 2010, before he also introduced iCloud, in what would be his last keynote presentation at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2011, before his untimely death four months later.
The story of Apple cannot be told without the mere mention of Steve Jobs. His fingerprints are left all over the company, but now under Tim Cook’s watch, he’s breaking new grounds with Apple by introducing the new product category, smartwatch.
Conforming the roots of technology with a sense of pinnacle luxury and elegant fashion, the new Apple Watch Edition in 18 karat gold is the ultimate accessory in luxury style for the affluent society worldwide, representing the highest class in wearable technology today. Retail prices certainly reflect that notion around the globe:
- $10,000 to $17,000 in the United States
- $13,000 to $22,000 in Canada
- £8,000 to £13,500 in the United Kingdom
- 11 000,00 € to 18 000,00 € in Europe
- RMB 74,800 to RMB 126,800 in China
- ￥1,280,000 (税別) to ￥2,180,000 (税別) in Japan
- A$14,000.00 to A$24,000.00 in Australia
Appealing to a wide range of personal styles, Apple Watch Edition is available in both yellow and rose gold, “each as a custom alloyed, designed to not only be beautiful, but up to twice as hard as standard gold,” said Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Design at Apple.
“It begins at the molecular level where precise adjustments in the amount of silver, copper, and palladium in the alloy, result in very specific hues of yellow and rose gold,” Ive explained.
Apple used a new harping process, developed by their own metallurgists, to strengthen the luxurious metal that is naturally soft. Molten gold is cast into solid ingots, which are then precisely milled to remove any imperfections. The gold is then “compressed to a fraction of their original size, creating dense, pore free billets.”
“Ultra-sonic scanners are used to detect even the most minute defects in the metal,” said Ive. “From these solid billets, we machine the watch housing, as well as individual components, like the digital crown, and the clasps for our straps.”
The hand-polished finished design of Apple Watch Edition is gold that is “elegant, yet uncompromisingly durable,” and it targets the lavish luxury lifestyle of millions worldwide, including the rich and famous. Celebrities like Pharrell Williams, Drake, Katy Perry, and model Christy Turlington are among the first in their fields to garner Apple Watch some impressionable clout by dawning it on their wrists.
Where we as a society ask what can possibly be next, Apple surprises us again by getting very personal with style. Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and Apple Watch Edition in gold are products that dawn the inception pinnacle luxury technology with elegant fashion.
