The Stylish Headphone Company That's Turning Heads Frends has transformed a way to listen to music into a must-have women's fashion accessory.

It has happened before. In 2003 Skullcandy introduced colorful, stylish headphones to a dull, monochrome market and topped $80 million in revenue within five years. Many imitators entered the fray, creating a roaring industry for headphones that Futuresource Consulting valued at $6 billion in 2012. Now, Keir Dillon and his six-person team at Frends are on a mission to seize a large swath of the market with premium headphones for women that are treated more like designer handbags than the "shrink-it-and-pink-it" products that had plagued the category to that point.

Frends' bestselling $149 Layla headphones, for instance, sport specially engineered audio drivers that allow for a thinner silhouette. Wrapped in soft leather, they're designed to prevent the dreaded hair-snagging of traditional models and are accented with hand-polished, antiqued metals. Instead of a plastic clamshell, Frends products are packaged in textured, cream-color boxes with magnetic closures and come with protective carrying pouches that resemble clutch purses.