Why Is A Fashion Industry Executive Headed To Work At Apple?
July 3, 2013
This has become quite an interesting day in the world of technology. First, it was announced that Best Buy would begin selling the Pebble Watch on July 7. Later, Bloomberg reported that Apple was close to signing a deal with its first cable company to provide programming on the Apple TV. In this case, the company is Time Warner Cable.
The most interesting news came when Bloomberg announced, and Apple later confirmed, that Yves Saint Laurent CEO Paul Deneve was headed to work at Apple.
In a statement to AllThingsD, an Apple spokesperson noted:
We’re thrilled to welcome Paul Deneve to Apple. He’ll be working on special projects as a vice president reporting directly to Tim Cook.Surprisingly, the fashion industry executive won’t be taking over Apple’s retail operations, which has been without a leader since John Browett was fired late last year. So what was Deneve hired to do? Apple isn’t saying, but AllThingsD has an idea. They note that Deneve worked as a sales and marketing manager at Apple Europe from 1990 to 1997. Combine that with his experience marketing luxury goods, and suddenly he becomes the perfect candidate to market “the high-design, luxury goods of the tech world.” AllThingsD suggests that Deneve might have been hired to help market Apple’s long-rumored line of iWatches, and this may certainly be correct. However, I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that Deneve’s job could actually be to help market the so-called “iTV.” After all, a $99 wristwatch is hardly what most would call a luxury item, even if it does come from Apple. A 55-inch first generation Apple television, on the other hand, could be. Of course, Deneve may have been hired to market both products – or neither of them. Regardless, we can safely assume that Deneve wasn’t hired to bring Apple’s clothing line back to life. Yes, in 1986, Apple had a clothing line! Hopefully we’ll hear more about Apple’s newest hire very soon.