Jony Ive On Apple Watch Hermès And "Exclusivity"

The recent Jony Ive WSJ interview revealed an interesting tidbit on the mindset of Apple’s “chief design officer” when it comes to such luxury goods as Apple Watch Hermès. Writes Christina Passariello,

Apple Inc. is embracing a luxury name with its new $1,500 smartwatch with French fashion house Hermès. But Apple design chief Jonathan Ive resists the notion that Apple is becoming exclusive, a defining characteristic of luxury goods.

“We don’t think in those terms,” Mr. Ive said in an interview Wednesday, after the Apple Watch Hermès was unveiled. “I’m not comfortable with words like exclusive.”

What?

It seems like Apple’s top brass is getting more and more disingenuous with its “everyman” blather. Maybe it takes a guy worth $130 million to tell the world that $1500 smartwatches aren’t “exclusive” products by definition and default. Maybe it takes a nine-figure multimillionaire to actually believe that a company making $17,000 solid gold wrist wear isn’t firmly footed in the realm of complete and total exclusivity (at least within that product line).

Ive lives in a different universe than most folks, and whether or not he’s comfy with “words like exclusive,” that’s exactly what he’s positioning his apparent swan song as.

Also, I’m not sure it’s particularly clever salesmanship to sell exclusive products by telling everyone they’re not exclusive.