After the last month saw Apple seeking out “iWatch” trademarks around the globe, Cupertino has fueled some more wearable speculation with the curious hire of Paul Deneve, former CEO of Yves Saint Laurent.

As Reuters points out, Cupertino confirmed the hire of Deneve as a vice president at Apple and added that he will be working on “special projects” and report directly to CEO Tim Cook.

Besides his experience working in fashion, Deneve formerly worked in sales and marketing for Apple in Europe.

Given Deneve’s experience with traditional wearables, it stands to reason that he’s been brought on to assist in some way with Apple’s rumored foray into the wearable tech space.

In March, Bloomberg reported that Apple’s “iWatch” could see release by the end of 2013. Deneve could help provide the edge Apple needs to catch up to an already off-and-running smart watch market.

The buzz surrounding currently available smart watches belongs to Pebble, which began shipping in January after a successful Kickstarter campaign and just went up for sale in Best Buy stores. But there is plenty of other competition already on the market, like Cookoo and smart watches from Sony and Motorola.