Technology and fashion have always been intertwined, but as more of the devices we use become things we wear, the line between the two is getting harder to distinguish.
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Headphones are an obvious example. Once primarily functional accessories, they’ve become part of how people present themselves in public. Whether worn over the ears, resting around the neck, or sitting on a purse or a hat, they can complement an outfit, communicate personal taste and signal an affinity for a particular brand or community. Like sneakers, jewelry, socks or a favorite bag, they’re increasingly part of the visual language through which people express themselves and story tell.
And it makes sense. When technology becomes something you physically wear, its design becomes part of your appearance. You’re not just choosing a device for what it can do. You’re choosing something that will exist on your body, in public, alongside everything else you use to communicate who you are and what you’re about. And now you’re thinking, “Will these headphones match most of my looks? Will these headphones bring my fits together or take away from them?”
We’re at a point where so many headphones have amazing noise-canceling, transparency mode, great audio quality and mics. Some may be better than others in some categories but the differences — no matter if the brands like it or not — are becoming few and far between.
That raises a bigger question about the future of technology: As products become increasingly capable, will their cultural significance matter as much as their technical capabilities?
At Nothing’s New Noise event in New York, that question extended beyond the products on display. The event brought together technology, fashion and music, with conversations featuring Kelela and Navy Blue — two artists whose approaches to music and fashion offer different perspectives on where culture is heading.
The connection isn’t simply that musicians are wearing headphones or that technology companies are borrowing from fashion. It’s that technology, fashion and music are increasingly intertwined forms of self-expression. The products we carry, the clothes we wear and the music we listen to all contribute to how we construct our identities and how people construct identities for us. And as technology becomes more visible in our everyday lives, the way it looks, feels and fits into our personal worlds becomes harder to separate from its function.
For Nothing’s chief brand officer, Charlie Smith, that relationship is already apparent in the way people wear headphones.
“Headphones are like wearing a scarf or a necklace,” he says. “I think it says something about who you are as a person, in the same way that the brands of clothes you choose to wear do.”
Smith, who previously worked at fashion house Loewe, sees an opportunity for technology to develop the same kind of recognizable identity that fashion brands have cultivated for decades. He argues that many devices have become visually interchangeable, creating space for companies to distinguish themselves through more expressive design.
Philipp Von Lintel, who works on Nothing’s product design, makes the comparison even more directly: “The Headphone 1 is almost like a sneaker, but for your head.”
It’s a simple analogy with larger implications. Sneakers aren’t just designed around comfort and performance. Their silhouettes, materials and cultural associations can make them objects of desire, personal expression and community, as someone who collects with close to 250+ pairs, trust me I know. Headphones can occupy similar territory because they’re functional objects that people also wear as part of their everyday look.
But fashion’s influence on technology isn’t just about making devices look better. It’s also about the experience of interacting with them, the materials, the craftsmanship and the consideration behind their design.
Navy Blue, who describes himself as detail-oriented, says those considerations are what make products meaningful to him. “I think there are a lot of like-minded people who find joy in the little things, like how their T-shirt might have a single stitch, and so forth,” he says.
He believes consumers will increasingly want to understand how products are made, including where their materials come from. In that sense, technology’s relationship with fashion could involve more than aesthetics. It could also mean bringing the values associated with craftsmanship and intentional design into the products people use every day.
And this is where the conversation about technology starts to intersect with the future of music.
The connection between fashion, technology and music is also reflected in the people brands choose to represent them. At Nothing’s New Noise event, the company announced V of BTS as its new global brand ambassador alongside the launch of Headphone (1) Pro.
The partnership illustrates how technology companies are increasingly looking to music and culture to give their products an identity beyond their technical capabilities. V isn’t simply representing a pair of headphones; he’s bringing his own creative identity and global cultural influence into the way the product is presented to audiences.
Artists have long used their visual identities to complement their sound, turning clothing, photography, performance and album artwork into extensions of their creative worlds. But as Kelela points out, that relationship only works when the visual expression has something meaningful behind it.
“Sometimes it’s really great because the world-building you do around a certain type of sound helps guide you toward understanding what somebody means,” she says. “It helps you receive the sonic outcome even more.”
She also cautions that a strong visual identity can become an empty shell if there’s nothing substantive behind it musically.
That tension matters to both industries. Fashion can give technology a stronger identity, just as visual presentation can deepen the experience of music. But neither can rely on appearances alone. The design must mean something, and the music has to deliver something worth hearing.
For artists like Kelela and Navy Blue, that connection between appearance, identity and creative substance is part of a broader conversation about where culture is going. Their perspectives at New Noise offered a reminder that the future isn’t just about the next device or the next sound. It’s also about the people creating new ways for audiences to experience both.