One of my good friends from college recently came to visit me, and I got the chance to play with his Apple Watch. He’s a big Apple fan and buys all their new products the day it comes out, so it wasn’t a big surprise that he bought the watch. I’ll admit, it was pretty nice. Actually it was really nice. He opted for the $700 Milanese Loop version, a substantial price increase over the base model, and it certainly felt premium. That’s a lot of money to spend on a first-generation piece of technology, but it doesn’t come close to the Apple Watch Editions that range between $10,000 and $17,000 dollars since they’re made from gold. However as premium as they are, there are a few gold Apple Watches out in the wild that you can’t buy, and Beyoncé has one of them.
People were quick to criticize the $10,000 plus gold Apple Watches, and rightfully so, however that’s not stopping people who can afford them from buying them. We’ve seen a few celebrities like Pharrell and Katy Perry show off theres, but a select few like Beyoncé were given a special version that is unavailable to the public. She was spotted wearing the watch at Coachella and it looks very cool. Unlike the other gold Apple Watches that either have a sport band or a leather band, the one Beyoncé has features a solid, all-gold strap. Now we aren’t sure the price on this model since you can’t buy it, but some people estimate that it costs over $25,000!
So far the only other person known to have this particular model is Karl Lagerfeld, the lead designer and creative director over at Chanel. His assistant posted to above picture on Instagram to show it off, so you can get a better sense of what the watch looks like. Since the band is made from gold and you cannot buy this model, this unique version is a bit more valuable than the others obviously. The craziest thing is that Beyoncé and Lagerfeld didn’t have to buy these watches, as Apple has been giving many celebrities and VIP’s Apple Watches as part of a marketing plan to increase the hype.
As crazy as these gold Apple Watch Edition’s are, they actually seem to be quite popular. For example, in China the $17,000 dollar model sold out in less than an hour. Still the most popular versions are the entry-level Sport models that are $350 or $399. They’re pretty much back ordered everywhere and are selling for upwards of $700 on eBay. But the big takeaway here is that there seems to be a market for luxury smartwatches. As TAG Heuer and Google have announced a smartwatch that is expected to cost over $1,000 and given how popular the higher-priced Apple Watches are, high-end smartwatches are seemingly going to be around for some time now.
Photos from New York Magazine’s Twitter, Instagram.com/bentoub
