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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lydia Spencer-Elliott

How wired headphones became a stylish rebellion against Big Tech

Wired Apple Martin LilyRose Depp Balenciaga Bella Hadid Kaia Gerber Mona Tougaard Zoë Kravitz
Plugged in: Lily-Rose Depp on a walk with her wired headphones in New York - (GC Images)

Unpair your AirPods and chargers be damned. Wired headphones – the once infuriatingly tangled white cord tethering us all together – are booming after five straight years of tech advancements and subsequent declining sales.

We are plugging back in, so much so that there was a 20 per cent wired headphone revenue surge in the first six weeks of 2026, bringing the tech accessory back from the brink after it suffered a $42m (£31.2m) drop in 2024.

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