They may be more at home on the hardwood than the catwalk, but NBA players still set fashion trends.
When LeBron James stepped out at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a pair of Beats by Dre headphones draped around his neck, the popularity of the then-fledgling brand exploded overnight.
Fast-forward almost two decades, and another kind of headphone is dangling from the ears of rising stars and seasoned veterans alike: from Anthony Edwards to Steph Curry, wired earbuds are the go-to play for an increasing number of basketball’s elite.
And they’re far from the only ones going retro.
Drake, Lily-Rose Depp, Harry Styles and Zendaya are among the bulging list of A-listers who have been spotted disconnecting from Bluetooth in favor of the cord.
“I really just like the old school plug-in ones,” Emma Watson told Vogue in 2023, while “What’s In the Bag” segments by the fashion magazine with Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande last year showed the pair of pop megastars swearing by the wire.
The cover story for December’s issue of New York Magazine showcased a host of celebrity duos, including Ben Stiller and New York Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns, sharing wired buds on the subway.
The founder of the Wired It Girls account on Instagram, Shelby Hull has been the unofficial voice of the cord comeback since launching the handle in 2021, using her burgeoning platform to both document and celebrate the revival.
Los Angeles-based Hull began the account after reading an article by then-Vogue senior writer Liana Satenstein that championed model Bella Hadid’s choice to sport “the humble” wired headphone.
It struck a chord with Hull, who responded to Satenstein’s subsequent call for an Instagram account dedicated to the trend. Naturally, Hadid was the subject of the inaugural post.
“She’s obviously wealthy, she can afford AirPods, but she always stuck to the wire,” Hull told CNN.
“And there was something so effortless about it: very cool, very unbothered to keep up with the latest tech trends. She didn’t care, and that’s kind of what the article touched on.”
That indifference to expensive new devices, Hull adds, is what distinguishes the “wired” It Girl from the regular variety, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “a famous young woman who is known for going to a lot of parties and social events.”
While the inability to cough up thousands for a Birkin bag bars many from full entry to the It Girl lifestyle, corded headphones — currently retailing for just over $25 (£19) on Apple’s site — offer an accessible route to the brand of effortless cool embodied by pop star Charli XCX and fashion designers the Olsen twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley, says Hull.
By contrast, Apple’s latest AirPods start from $159 (£119), rising to $669 (£499) for the Max over-ear versions.
Tunnel vision
Affordability and celebrity endorsement, as well as 2024’s Charli XCX-inspired, imperfection-embracing “Brat girl summer,” have combined to supercharge a trend that Hull had expected to remain “niche.”
Influencer athletes have also played a role. Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is flying the flag for the yet-to-be-conceived Wired It Boys thanks to his well-publicized pregame ritual of a matcha drink and corded headphones.
Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Ben Skowronek has made no secret of his status as a proud “wire guy.”
In the NBA, arena tunnels have become a concrete runway upon which players can strut their carefully curated wardrobe choices, with last year’s New York Fashion Week attended by a number of impeccably-dressed hoopers.
“[Fashion and the NBA] Go hand in hand because it’s ultimately the culture … Whatever is going on in that era is also going on within the tunnel,” Chad Brown, founder of the 500,000 follower-strong NBA Fashion Fits account on Instagram, told CNN.
The wired resurgence has not gone unnoticed by Brown, who launched his platform in 2016 having spent a lot of time in the tunnels while previously working for the league as a production coordinator. Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard and Cooper Flagg all feature in the long list of cable headphone sporters.
How much of that is down to practicality, as opposed to stylistic expression, Brown remains unsure of.
Philadelphia 76ers center Andre Drummond once told him that he was approximately on his 20th pair of wireless earbuds, while Los Angeles Lakers guard Marcus Smart remarked earlier this month that he preferred corded options for his pre-game routine.
“The Bluetooth ones are a little difficult,” he said in a social video shared by the Lakers.
“Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they fall out, sometimes they disconnect, sometimes they lose power, sometimes you forget to charge them.”
They are all concerns Brown can empathize with, but the fashion factor remains crucial, especially among the league’s newest recruits.
“Everything goes in cycles … It’s nostalgic,” he explains.
“It’s an accessory, it’s part of the fit … Any guy that’s recently drafted is probably going to be wearing wired headphones.”
Analog angst
Since Apple launched a headphone jack-less iPhone 7 in 2016, many other phone manufacturers subsequently ditched the jack. Wireless headphones accounted for 66 percent of sales in 2025, compared to 34 percent for wired earphones, according to Future Marketing Insight.
But cable enthusiasts will cite benefits ranging from ease of setup to security: unlike their Bluetooth-enabled cousins, wired headphones can’t be hacked and are considered safer for sensitive conversations.
Yet the nod to nostalgia hints at a deeper yearning that underpins not just the renaissance of the cabled headphone, but of a generation more widely: the longing for a more offline existence.
Dubbed as “analog lifestyles,” focusing on tangible ways to complete daily tasks and find entertainment amid an increasingly AI-driven landscape is a growing phenomenon being championed by millennials and Gen Z.
From the explosion of analog hobby interest like knitting to the emerging industry of ‘dumbphones’ (phones with limited functions) and instax cameras, the desire to scale back on digital usage, even if not entirely cut it out, has grown in recent years.
For Hull, the enduring popularity of wired headphones must be viewed in such a context.
“There’s so much AI now, so many things that are digital and not real to people anymore. I think people want tangible touch points. That’s why nostalgia is so big for the 90s and early 2000s: people want something they can touch, something they can feel,” she said.
“I love the way I can have a phone in my pocket: a computer and a camera. It’s an all-in-one device. But recently I bought a vintage VHS camera, I bought a film camera, I’m collecting old headphones, and I’m watching DVDs again.
“I just really long for that more analog experience. I think a lot of people do.”