Over the weekend, as he took in the Princeton-Green Bay women’s N.C.A.A. basketball game (his niece plays for Princeton), President Obama was sporting a new fashion accessory: a smartwatch —reportedly a Fitbit Surge.
He had also worn it on St. Patrick’s Day last week, when he met at the White House with the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny. And that’s the choice that strikes me as significant: taking what has been effectively sold as workout gear plus, and brings it into the Oval Office.
This raises some interesting possibilities about the messaging power implicit in the choice. After all, the president has another watch — a Jorg Gray 6500 — so he must have worn this one for a reason.
And that is either:
a) The latest example of the athleisure-ization of everything, and the power of an accessory that suggests the wearer is into health and fitness at a time when these are seen as valuable characteristics; or
b) Proof positive that no matter how dorky these things still look — and really, it’s hard to see the pictures of Mr. Obama at either event mentioned above and think that the chunky plastic band on his wrist is elegant — their cool factor, or usefulness factor, is beginning to outweigh their lack of aesthetic appeal; or
c) A combination of both.
I tend to come down in favor of (c).
Certainly, it’s a useful thing for a world leader to be able to communicate his dedication to working out (especially one whose wife has a campaign called “Let’s Move”) simply by the flick of a wrist. It says all sorts of powerful things about his athleticism, with all the positive associations that implies (about, among other things, his readiness to do battle on the hill).
I would imagine the same would be true for other executives.
And that’s an attribute that talking heads (or writing hands) such as myself, who have tended to focus on the lack of fashion credibility of these things, as well as overexcited techies who have tended to focus on applications, have overlooked thus far.
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