Nixon enters the audio market

You probably know Nixon for their iconic watches, but they're not sitting on their laurels. They just announced the launch of a new portable audio business:

“It’s been a real challenge to go from the bottom up, but we are really happy where we’ve ended up because of it,” says Crane. “We are basically treating the new line as a second core category, and the idea that we approached it that way, with all our guns blazing, has really started to pay off.”
...
Why headphones? DiNenna says that while partnering with other brands in the past, Nixon often got suggestions from peers on what should come next. “People always say, ‘You know what? You should make this or you should make shoes or you should make sunglasses,’ but nothing ever really felt like a match for what we wanted to do.” Taking a look around at friends and co-workers and their interests and passions, DiNenna realized that centering a new product on music was the most logical transition.

My take
Obviously there's no guarantees, but from the quotes above, it sounds like they're doing everything exactly like they should, and I have no doubts that they'll be very successful. There are two specific things that make me so hopeful:

1. They're starting from the ground up
With lifestyle brands, it is critical to understand that each product category plays by its own, unique set of rules. You don't necessarily have to follow every one to the tee, but you must know all of them, so if you break them it's a strategic point of differentiation, not a dumb mistake that blows your credibility with the core.

2. They're pursuing their passions
They chose headphones because they wanted to do headphones. While that kind of arbitrary decision-making would be anathema in the world of traditional brands, it makes perfect sense for a lifestyle brand. If you don't live the brand, it will be very obvious to your consumer that it's a phony, contrived move. Authenticity is a given when pursuing a category they're passionate about, and very few things matter more than authenticity for a lifestyle brand.