Stylish smartwatches will soon be hitting Fossil's shelves in Beijing, making the company the latest addition to the growing number of brands merging technology with fashion.
The U.S.-based accessory brand is set to roll out its collection of intelligent analog watches in mainland China this fall, wrote China Daily. This is also in time for the opening of its newly refurbished store in Beijing's Oriental Place.
The latest line of smartwatches will include sleep and health monitoring features. But unlike most smartwatches in the market today, Fossil's intelligent timepieces will retain their fashion-centric appeal without sacrificing functionality.
One of the biggest challenges of wearable makers is to come up with devices that people would actually want to wear. This means stylish and less bulky smartwatches or fitness bands that are functional yet fashionable.
Fossil seems to be trying to address this problem.
"It will look like a watch, but have technology inside. It's a different angle . . . Digital is where the future is headed and where we will invest heavily," said Fossil's marketing director Alisha Shroff in a China Daily report.
Shroff also said that Fossil will stand out amid a plethora of smartwatch releases by focusing on fashion. The company's first venture into the wearables market was through the Q Founder, a smartwatch based on Android Wear. It was followed by two touchscreen smart timepieces that display calls and alerts, as well as track commuting information.
The company's wearables push had been cemented by the acquisition of Misfit for $260 million in 2015.
Fossil, however, is not the only fashion brand riding the wearables craze.
Citing figures from Strategy Analytics, CNET said that global shipments of smartwatches outpaced those of Swiss watches in the fourth quarter of 2015.
To buck the trend, traditional watchmakers such as Tag Heuer and Tissot have also released their smart timepieces.