“Fashion’s hottest accessory has probably been sitting at the bottom of your junk drawer tangled, collecting dust. It’s time to bring your old school headphones out of retirement: the wires are back, baby.”
BY LEE HAYMAN
The biggest trend of 2026 isn’t the new Chanel flats from Matthieu Blazy’s debut collection, or even the mega oversized Jimmy Fairly sunnies gracing every influencer’s face. No, it’s a bit less couture. And for the past decade, fashion’s hottest accessory has probably been sitting at the bottom of your junk drawer tangled, collecting dust. It’s time to bring your old school headphones out of retirement: the wires are back, baby.
The fashion pendulum has swung once again. Ten years ago, AirPods dropped and a new wave of Bluetooth enabled headphones flooded the market. Consumers didn’t have to deal with jumbled wires. People strutted down the street seemingly shouting at no one, until you saw the gleaming white tic tac nestled in their ear.
So, what’s behind the resurgence of the wired look? Nostalgia for the 90’s is permeating the zeitgeist, now perceived as an easier, more carefree than the current landscape. Gen-Z has decided they’d rather shoot film, listen to music on record players and God forbid, wear capris again. We’re shifting back to what was comfortable and accessible then, and wired headphones is one way to nod to that time. It adds a layer to a look and invokes a “Do Not Disturb” aesthetic all at once. Even though it’s hard to believe a mess of tangled wires acts as an accessory, stars from Bella Hadid to Zoe Kravitz have all leaned into the trend, stamping it with an It Girl seal of approval.
“We are craving authenticity over perfection, quality over modernity.”
Walking down Houston Street, wired headphones are abundant, streaming from low rise denim wearing Gen-Xers, corporate girls on their way home from work, the gym bro headed to his session and even the mom juggling a stroller and groceries. We used to love the ease Bluetooth headphones gave us for handsfree talking and multitasking, spending 10x the cost of wired headphones on a single pair. We wanted innovation as fast as possible and all got comfortable holding, wearing and virtually sleeping with our technology.
The pivot back to the wires has both cultural and practical reasons. For starters, wired headphones don’t struggle with the pairing issues their Bluetooth counterparts do, and you don’t have to recharge them. They don’t emit EMFs, which is the slight but present radiation that comes from the electromagnetic fields Bluetooth uses to connect devices. Addy Hayman, 26, lives in San Francisco and works as a clinical researcher at UCSF. She says she reaches for her wires because “I don’t like the constant Bluetooth waves going into the head. They give me a headache after a while.” Although the EMFs emitted from wireless headphones are like those emitted by a Wi-Fi router and generally viewed as safe, their effects are incompletely understood. Many parts of technology we see as interwoven into our daily lives we are still guinea pigs for in real time.
“It adds a layer to a look and invokes a “Do Not Disturb” aesthetic all at once.”
Additionally, wired headphones make it obvious you’re on the phone or otherwise can’t be bothered. Like layering necklaces, they add a layer of texture to an outfit. “I like toting around both pairs when I’m traveling,” Charlotte Happel, 28, a senior product manager working in the solar tech sector, reports. “I do think (wires) look cooler; there’s kind of a thing about it now.” Happel says that in a city like New York, they’re a layer between you and the chaos.
Headphones in, sunglasses on, walk confidently in the direction of your destination and ward off the many humans on the sidewalk who may try to bump, talk or solicit you.
Sometimes, newest is not always best. Vintage popups litter Manhattan every weekend, a huge revival in thrifting vintage clothing. As they say, ‘everything old is new again.’ Being mass produced and modern is the antithesis of the cultural attitude towards analogue practices and shopping trends that are popular amongst younger generations right now. Social media posts that are “unfiltered” and messy photos from your camera roll are trending and doing better than the clean, curated aesthetic we used to prize. We are craving authenticity over perfection, quality over modernity.
I love putting a podcast on and walking down the street taking a break from the world. I notice most people doing the same, opting for wired headphones and leaning into the look that has exploded in popularity. There are places to be and people to see, and we can’t be bothered with pairing our headphones and having to update our phone to the latest software just to listen to music. Are wired headphones the new version of oversized ‘don’t fuck with me’ sunglasses for the masses? Our sources say yes.
