music hardware is a fashion accessory
why is everyone obsessed with audio hardware now?
Why is everyone obsessed with audio hardware now? Audio hardware is expanding from function to form, from a listening device to an object of expression, taste and aesthetic adornment. Fashion brands are viewing audio hardware as jewelry, like Diesel’s silver chain wired earbuds. High fidelity sound systems are showing up everywhere, including fashion runways, like Celine’s FW26 show anchored by custom wood-and-steel sound sculptures by Matéo Garcia. Technology brands are presenting their products as fashion accessories, and recruiting leaders like Charlie Smith, who exited LOEWE to join Nothing as the Chief Brand Officer at the start of 2026. These are a few of the many examples of how music hardware is re-emerging as a fashion accessory.
I originally wrote this essay in 2024 and published it on SQD.ZIP in February 2025 after a year of going down a music hardware rabbit hole. At the time, the discourse around wired headphones, physical media and single-purpose devices was being framed as the latest trend du jour. But none of this is new. Music, fashion and technology share a long, intertwined lineage, and what’s happening now is the latest chapter of a much longer story.
I’ve got a lot more music hardware things cooking across the rest of the year, and this research is the foundation for all of it. Hit me up if you’d like to stay in the loop.
Shout out Günseli Yalcinkaya and Henry Bruce Jones for editing this piece way back when!
Music Hardware is a Fashion Accessory
“Fuck sneakers, let’s make speakers.” These are the words of Jimmy Iovine. This was his advice to Dr. Dre in 2006, when Dre was contemplating launching a line of sneakers – that is, until Iovine told him otherwise. Beats by Dre was born. From the beginning, their idea was always to treat music hardware as a fashion accessory. They brought on industrial designer Robert Brunner, formerly of Apple, to rethink wearable tech as “iconic body art.” They wanted to design for a younger audience and their aspirational identity, tuned less for audio culture and more for fashion culture. For them, the challenge was not to compete with Bose, but with Jordan. They foresaw that the listening devices and headphones that we choose to buy, carry with us and wear on our bodies signal something about our identity, our personal style and our aesthetic world.
The story doesn’t start here, however. In 1966, the headphone brand Koss changed the world forever. Musician, entrepreneur and inventor John Koss had been making headphones since 1958, but they were largely designed to be operational and functional. They looked like something that U.S. Navy fighter pilots would wear, like Maverick in Top Gun. Koss broke new ground by creating Beatlephones, a limited edition collaboration with The Beatles. This was the first time a brand pushed headphones beyond being just a functional technology for more niche consumers interested in high fidelity audio, transforming physical hardware into a collectible accessory. Its vibrant blue design reflected the identity and aesthetic world of youth culture and what teens were listening to.
By 1979, the world was changed forever again, this time by Sony and the design of Norio Ohga. The birth of the Walkman was the birth of portable music (as well as the birth of the privatization of personal space). No longer were people tethered to their stereo at home or the office, allowing people to curate and carry the soundtrack and playlists of their life out into the world with them through a personal device. It was the original wearable technology, transforming music hardware into a wearable fashion accessory. The original advertising was aimed at youth culture, depicting people with the Walkman out in the world, styled and seen out on a date, laying poolside, or out walking, running or roller skating. It became an iconic symbol of the 1980’s, serving as a key part of the 80’s aerobics aesthetic, with sleek aluminum blue and silver Walkmans clipped to lycra-clad hips.
Fast forward to the 2000’s and the birth of what Steve Jobs described as the “Walkman of the 21st century.” This was the beginning of the Apple paradigm and their domination over music hardware. The original all-white iPod took design cues from the minimalism, functionalism and timelessness of Dieter Rams, specifically his 1953 Braun T3 radio. The pure white earbuds, designed by Jony Ive, matched the iPod and were inspired by the sleek uniforms of Stormtroopers from Star Wars. The visual aesthetic of a white earbud in one’s ear was an intentional mark of status from the beginning, as well as a stark contrast to how most headphones from competitors at that time were all black.
Together, Apple’s iPod and earbuds were an expression of the listener’s identity and sonic world. Robert Longo’s iconic silhouettes served as mannequins, styled in Apple’s technology. The ads didn’t sell the technology, it sold how the tech looked and felt on one’s body.
As wearable tech has gotten closer and closer to our bodies, it has continued to serve as more than a functional listening device, evolving into an accessory that signals one’s aspirational identity, status, taste and self-expression. In the lineage of Koss and The Beatles collaboration, the portable styling of the Walkman and the iPod-earbud combo, how people show who they are, what they value, and how they want to be seen has changed, blurring the line between technology and fashion.
Beats by Dre was the first headphones brand to push onto the runway, setting the trend for more music hardware appearing at fashion shows as an accessory. For Marine Serre, both her debut AW18 PFW show and her SS19 PFW show featured models wearing Apple’s white earbuds as part of her “futurewear” collections. Similarly, for Maison Margiela, John Galliano’s AW18 PFW show featured iPhones clamped onto models’ limbs, while his SS19 PFW show also included models sporting white earbuds.
These runway shows portrayed how our music hardware choices are increasingly an extension of ourselves. Our phones and screens have become inseparable parts of us, increasingly obscuring the boundaries between form and function, human and machine, the digital world and the physical world.
By the start of the 2020’s, the twenty year trend cycle pendulum swung Y2K aesthetics back into the mainstream, pushing wired headphones further into fashion. In 2021, the @wireditgirls Instagram account launched, documenting how celebrities like Lily-Rose Depp, Zoë Kravitz and Lana Del Rey are styling wired headphones. By 2022, global online sales of wired headphones jumped up 317%. In 2024, SKIMS’ campaign with Sabrina Carpenter featured her listening to a Sony Discman with wired headphones.
Global Google searches for “wired headphones” hit an all-time record high in search popularity in 2026, while wired headphones have nearly 130 million posts on TikTok, trends driven largely by Gen Z and Gen Alpha using their music hardware choices to curate the identity and aesthetic world that they want to reflect outward. It evokes a nostalgic feeling and resonates with an era of secondhand fashion, with #Y2K charting as one of Depop’s most popular styles. Iovine’s vision remains prescient. Music hardware is not just functional, but has become as much a fashion signal as a sneaker.
Beyond The Apple Paradigm
For almost two decades, we have lived in Apple’s world. The iPod, the iPhone, the wired earbuds, the Airpods – these are the portable listening devices and headphones through which most people on Earth have listened to music. The iPhone continues to dominate global phone sales every year and Apple is still the most used headphone brand in the United States by a long shot, with double the headphone market share of the second place brand, Beats, which Apple owns. With both brands combined, Apple controls more than half the American headphone market.
But what if a music fandom were to have a different collective identity from Apple, united by its own unique shared symbols, aesthetics, interests, tastes and values? What if the world that an artist or brand wants to create for their fans differs from that of Apple? Interest in “world-building” is the highest it has ever been, people want to craft and curate the worlds in which they are immersed. Music hardware as a fashion accessory plays a vital role in that. We might be witnessing a hardware renaissance, as well as the early stages of unbundling from the Apple paradigm.
This is evident in part by the rapid increase in sales of older formats like cassettes and CDs, as well as their related listening devices, driven largely by Gen Z and Gen Alpha. There are tens of millions of posts on TikTok about cassette tapes and players, signaling a renewed interest in the old format that has primarily been driven by modern artists. Some of 2023’s top selling cassette albums were by Taylor Swift and Phoebe Bridgers. In 2022, they came from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and Billie Eilish. Similarly, in 2021, CD sales increased for the first time in two decades, driven in part by Gen Z collectors.
Modern brands and hardware are tapping into retro tech aesthetics to meet the demand. In 2023, Coperni dropped the “CD-PLAYER Swipe Bag” at their SS24 PFW show. In 2024, emerging brands like KICKBACK debuted their RetraDisc CD player, and We Are Rewind released its first collection of aluminum cassette players. New music hardware for children is also emerging, like the Yoto screen-free audio players, which address the screen-addicted generation of ‘iPad Kids’.
The growing interest in single-purpose hardware reflects several changes happening in culture. Y2K maximalism continues to trend as Gen Z and Gen Alpha look to the past for hardware accessories that reflect a vintage style and nostalgic feelings, channeling feelings of anemoia, the yearning for a time and experience that one has never personally known. “Everyone is trying to find a way to show who they are, not just listening to music, but also saying: this is what I hear, this is who I am,” says Romain Boudruche, CEO of We Are Rewind.
Even for the beloved Teenage Engineering, music hardware is not just functional, in fact, their product is design. Founder and CEO Jesper Kouthoofd also works as Head of Design, steering the company’s distinct aesthetic of Scandinavian minimalism. Retro-futurist flourishes and bold colors serve as strong visual signals before the device is even switched on.
There is a growing sentiment, especially amongst Gen Z and Gen Alpha girls, that technology brands and hardware do not reflect their identity and world. “There’s a general consensus around this anti-tech feeling, especially from teens and 20-year-olds,” says London Glorfield, the co-founder and CEO of KICKBACK. “It became less fringe when I started hearing 18-year-old girls from Idaho feel this way – not just New York assholes.”
When people are plugged into the current digital, algorithmic paradigm of hardware, the mediated music listening experience can feel isolating and disembodied. As a result, there is a renewed yearning for the tangible, for the physical presence of music hardware that can connect us back to the world and each other. “People want to have a physical format in their hands. They don’t really care if it’s a cassette or a vinyl. The point is to just have a physical object in their hands,” says Boudruche about his experience with We Are Rewind.
Our culture has hit peak image. Our eyes have been glued to and captivated by the screen. As Marshall McLuhan predicted in the 1960’s, a grand shift is happening. “One of the big flips that’s taking place in our time is the changeover from the eye to the ear. Most…having grown up in the visual world, are now suddenly confronted with the problems of living in an acoustic world which is, in effect, a world of simultaneous information,” McLuhan foretold. Now, in response to this information overload for our eyes, the relationship between our senses and media is shifting towards the ear.
Make Artist-Made Hardware Again
In recent years, music artists have demonstrated a desire to create physical objects that are extensions and expressions of their identity, blending their visual aesthetic with the sonic worlds they have built. Once upon a time, music merch, while being a high signal for an artist’s identity and world, was not always of the highest quality. Seeing someone wearing a Nirvana or Grateful Dead shirt served as an extension of the fan’s identity, regardless of how well the garment was made.
Around 2018, the perception of music merch was elevated, lifted into the realm of premium and luxury goods. This was primarily due to the increasing perception that, in the wake of piracy and streaming, music should be free. Artists needed to find ways to offset, monetize and increase the value of their offering. Kanye West x Wes Lang, Travis Scott x Virgil Abloh, Nicki Minaj x Don C and Lil Wayne x Bravado are all examples of artists bundling their music releases to physical products, placing newfound importance on the role of merch. As of 2025, the global merch market revenue reached a record high and continues to grow exponentially.
As the perceived value of physical merchandise increases, so does the desire for greater control over how listeners remain connected to an artist’s world. Creating music hardware as an additional physical expression of this world may be part of the solution. Part of the original intent behind creating Beats by Dre was control, addressing Dr. Dre’s frustration that listeners were not experiencing his music the way he wanted. Just as 2018’s inflection point around piracy and streaming devaluing music led to new innovation in physical merchandise, perhaps now is an inflection point for new innovation in artist-made hardware. Does physical music hardware reflect the world of the artist, or someone else’s?
Kanye West and Kano Computing’s Stem Player was released alongside Donda 2 in 2021, a screen-less handheld device that could not only stream music, but also allowed fans to manipulate stems directly. It was Kanye’s attempt to take more control and ownership over how his music was released and monetized, at the same time seizing control over how he builds worlds around his releases, as well as his connections with fans.
USB Club, the social-file sharing network, was also born in 2021. Their primary hardware is a USB, with artists, DJs, designers and researchers in their community finding use beyond file storage, wearing them as accessories. “We never planned for people to wear USBs. The more we built out USB Club, the more people we found already wearing them – they take to it as an extension of their identity,” says Yatú Espinosa, Artist-Founder of USB Club. “Our USBs, compared to other USBs on the market, are more refined,” adds Norm O’Hagan, Artist-Founder of USB Club. “They unlock a network and point to their own unique world.”
Yatú views hardware like USBs as physical heirlooms that store our memories and can be passed down from generation to generation. “The Internet is not the only place to store memories.” says Yatú. Since the birth of music streaming, people began to move away from owning digital and physical media, adopting subscription models to access an infinitely expansive catalog of any music people choose to listen to, anytime.
In this infinite access, people have also lost themselves in the digital ether of ephemeral, impermanent media experiences, constantly at risk of being lost to the erasure of platforms. Artist and cyberethnographer Ruby Justice Thelot calls this “the shock of deletion,” exploring digital ephemerality and memory loss in his book A Cyberarchaeology Of Checkpoints. Communities based around hardware, like USB Club, are beginning to shift back towards owning digital and physical media, consolidating the core memories that people encode into both music hardware and fashion accessories.
In 2022, VÉRITÉ teamed up with IYK, a company connecting everyday objects to digital experiences, to become the first-ever music artist to release chipped merch. The VÉRITÉ Crewneck is a physical sweatshirt with an NFC chip embedded in it, linking to her world of songs, music videos and behind-the-scenes content. “We are seeing a shift away from the ephemeral, passive experience of listening to music in a purely digital landscape,” explains VÉRITÉ. “Embedding music into physical objects grounds this experience and allows for new avenues of value creation – both sentimental and monetary – for artists and audiences.” Ryan Ouyang, co-founder of IYK, adds, “The simplest way to feel connected is to have something physical representing the music. You embed sentimental value into music that you can hold and play with and archive on your shelf or in your closet. That’s a special feeling that you can only get from hardware.”
When Moncler unveiled “City Of Genius” at Shanghai Fashion Week 2024, A$AP Rocky teased that his next release would be a retro-inspired home entertainment system with speakers, headphones, cassette, VHS and DVD players.
Despite these examples, artist-made hardware remains an under-explored frontier for artists to experiment in world-building. While the old VC Silicon Valley adage “hardware is hard” remains true, creating hardware prototypes is becoming more accessible due to shifts in manufacturing, talent, costs, funding and marketing and sales channels. Gone are the days when the only way to create hardware as an artist was through brand deals and investment in tech companies.
These shifts are opening the gates for artists and new brands alike, laying the foundation for more and more people to create new music hardware that breaks with the current paradigms. In doing so, they create new forms from which we might continue to build new worlds, and of course, music hardware as a fashion accessory.
Nick Susi is a writer and strategy executive, exploring the technological, societal and psychological forces that shape our identity, perception and culture. He has led strategy for dotdotdash, Complex, The FADER and Jay Z’s former media brand Life+Times. His research and writing can be found in Business of Fashion, GQ, FWB FEST, Joshua Citarella’s Do Not Research, Matt Klein’s ZINE, Boys Club, Future Commerce, Water & Music, and the Library of Congress.
Lots happening in musical instrument hardware - Teenage Engineering of course, but bands putting out synthesisers as albums (a place to bury strangers did this, as does Tristan Perich), ambient/lifestyle sound devices like Instruo Scion, and my own Music Thing Workshop System which is affordable hardware + workshops & events & community
I think it's because of American consumer habits - more political and social upheaval, more desire to own material objects - as much as it is a desire to self express. I'm not too crazy about getting the sickest looking pair of headphones unless it has incredible audio functions...it's almost poser-ish to get a pair of headphones that look futuristic and cool but the audio quality sucks. The music hardware I wanna see is new instruments, new sounds...new ways of experiencing music. Not more "buy buy buy" stuff.