Things have moved on a bit since the question was asked – it is now possible to use a MutationObserver to detect changes in the ‘style’ attribute of an element, no jQuery required:
var observer = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) {
mutations.forEach(function(mutationRecord) {
console.log('style changed!');
});
});
var target = document.getElementById('myId');
observer.observe(target, { attributes : true, attributeFilter : ['style'] });
The argument that gets passed to the callback function is a MutationRecord object that lets you get hold of the old and new style values.
Support is good in modern browsers including IE 11+.