Gucci Adds Luxury to a Body Monitoring Ring

Dec 30, 2023

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A second iteration of the collaboration between the Italian brand and a Finnish health technology company is expected this fall.

By Penelope Colston

Gucci's Interlocking G logo made its debut on leather goods in 1933, and since then has appeared on scarves and belt buckles, perfume bottles and high-end loafers. And now it adorns something the brand's founder, Guccio Gucci, would never have envisioned: a smart ring that monitors sleep, heart rate and other body signals.

Released in May, the Gucci x Oura Ring was a collaboration between the Italian luxury house and Oura, a Finnish health technology company that in 2016 released its first model, a sleep-tracking ring. (Oura said it sold its millionth ring in March.)

Priced at $950, the limited-edition Gucci model housed Oura's third generation technology, which debuted in November 2021. Sensors inside the ring band monitor temperature, heart and breathing rates during sleep as well as a range of activities. A corresponding app then calculates "readiness" scores that the wearer can use to evaluate fitness and sleep cycles.

"So you know to take it easy if your scores are low, and if they have been high, we might guide you to challenge yourself a little more that day," Michael Chapp, Oura's chief operating officer, said in a video interview. "The question is: How ready are you for the day?"

A news release Gucci issued in May said that the collaboration united two companies "on a shared path towards greater well-being and self-realization." And Mr. Chapp said the partnership was inspired by Gucci's 100-year anniversary, which the company, based in Florence, Italy, celebrated last year.

The ring is made of black synthetic corundum, with the logo and the braided torchon detailing around the band both hand-inlaid in 18-karat yellow gold. It has sold out; Mr. Chapp would not disclose how many were produced.

But the ring's second series is to be introduced this fall on gucci.com and at select Gucci stores worldwide, a Gucci spokeswoman wrote in an email.

The collaboration points to an increasing desire, especially among women, for sleek, high-end pieces that present as traditional jewelry yet house wellness technology, Juliet Hutton-Squire, the co-founder of Adorn, a jewelry industry consultancy based in London, wrote in an email. She was not involved in the project.

"As the technology becomes more ‘nano,’ the jewelry aesthetic will improve," she wrote. "The casing will become more refined and therefore more seamlessly integrated into everyday wear, especially for women."

And the collaboration, she wrote, shows Gucci's "commitment to investing in change and newness whilst ensuring the result remains instantly recognizable as Gucci."

An earlier version of this article described incorrectly an app connected with the Gucci x Oura Ring. The app evaluates fitness and sleep cycles, as the article correctly noted, but it does not evaluate fertility.

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