Kim Kardashian has taken a lot of flak this year (and a lot of other years before this) for some dicey decisions, but her collaboration with Beats on some new color options for the Beats Fit Pro, surprisingly, resulted in something really cool.
The reimagined Beats Fit Pro comes in three neutral skin tone colors — Moon (light), Dune (medium) and Earth (deep) — that will be available for purchase online starting Tuesday, August 16 via Apple’s website and in stores on Wednesday, August 17 for $199.
Although they’re not functionally different from the Beats Fit Pro that were released in November 2021, the new color options in the Beats x Kim collection are a significant departure from the standard red-and-black color scheme we’ve seen on Beats earbuds before, and a nice change for the industry as a whole.
“Since you’re wearing them everyday, I wanted something that blends in and I’ve never seen any tech products — especially headphones — be in neutral colors,” Kardashian said in a behind-the-scenes video for the collaboration. “I found an artist that would paint the headphones but I thought, ‘why wouldn’t I just go directly to Beats and show them some of the samples that I was just-for-fun creating.”
The result is actually pretty innovative and unique in an industry obsessed with the same three or four color options.
Headphones as a style accessory
What helps here, in my opinion, is that Kim Kardashian views headphones differently from most of the mainstream tech industry. While many of us want better performance from our earbuds from the latest codecs and form factors, Kardashian appears to be primarily looking at them from a fashion accessory standpoint.
Headphones may be something I wear everyday, but I don’t put a lot of thought into how they look — only if they can deliver better sound than the headphones I was wearing last month and the month before.
What makes Kardashian’s collaboration with Beats more interesting to me is that, instead of creating some cheap knock-off like some other TV stars with her level of clout would, she went to a company that already makes some of the most well-recognized earbuds in the world with her designs.
At $199, Beats looks like it’s charging a $20 premium for the new colors compared to the regular Beats Fit Pro that can be found for $179 elsewhere — which is a bit of a bummer considering how cool the color options are — but props to Kardashian on this inclusionary collaboration.
