Apple hires Burberry CEO

Apple announced Tuesday it has hired Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of Burberry, the luxury fashion house and purveyor of all things in its signature plaid pattern. She’ll have a new role at Apple as senior vice president of retail and online sales. So, does this mean Apple is repositioning itself as a luxury brand?

“What Apple is doing is saying, ‘We are a luxury-slash-premium brand. We don’t intend to go to the bottom,'” says Milton Pedraza, the CEO of the Luxury Institute. “They’re trying to attract the top 20 percent, as opposed to all of it — but also as opposed to the top one percent.”