Duran Duran and We Are Rewind unveil WE-001 Special Edition hi-fi cassette player

We Are Rewind will release a special edition of its WE-001 cassette player in collaboration with Duran Duran. This isn’t just another retro gadget; it’s conceived as an art object. The design channels the band’s glossy aesthetic with chrome accents and shimmering tones, and the package includes a cassette reissue of Pop Trash to mark its 25th anniversary.

The player itself doesn’t live in the past. This version is optimized for 2025 and puts sound first: the company promises a true hi-fi approach and a dedicated headphone amplifier tuned specifically for tape playback. The body is made of aluminum, there’s Bluetooth for pairing with wireless headphones and speakers, and the built-in battery offers up to 12 hours of use with USB-C charging—no AA cells and no frantic battery hunts.

Nostalgia here is deliberate rather than decorative. Alongside a 3.5 mm wired output, the player can record: you can supply power to a microphone and hit Rec, or feed a line signal through the same 3.5 mm jack to capture whatever you want. And to complete the full analog ritual, there’s a pencil in the box—the time-honored tool generations used to rewind tapes.

Duran Duran’s creative director Andrew Day described the project as a surprisingly fitting way to celebrate Pop Trash in the streaming era, adding that the result feels more pop than trash.

We Are Rewind, for its part, stresses that Duran Duran have always centered style and tight control over their image, with cassettes as an organic piece of their cultural code; the idea is meant to restore a sense of value to music and to physical formats. In a market crowded with novelty throwbacks, that focus on intent gives the collaboration more weight than mere retro cosplay.

The WE-001 Duran Duran Special Edition is priced at €169 / $199 / £149, and for those who want to wear the player on display, We Are Rewind even offers a separate belt clip.