Why Consumers No Longer Want to Be Told Who They Are
On identity, aspiration, and what charms truly signify
For decades, aspirational branding operated on a relatively simple premise. Brands presented an identity, and consumers decided whether they wanted to move closer to it.
Luxury sold sophistication. Beauty sold confidence. Fashion sold aspiration. Even when products varied, the underlying proposition was often similar: become this version of yourself.
That model was incredibly effective because aspiration was relatively centralised. Cultural ideals were shaped by a smaller set of institutions—magazines, celebrities, luxury houses, and mass media—and consumers looked to brands partly for direction.
Increasingly, that relationship appears to be changing.
Consumers today are exposed to a much larger and more fragmented set of identities. They participate in multiple communities simultaneously, move across aesthetics, and build highly individual combinations of interests, values, and tastes.
In that environment, broad aspirational positioning begins to lose precision.
The question is no longer: Who do I want to become?
More often, it seems to be: Which products recognise something that already exists in me?
Recognition is different from aspiration
This distinction may appear semantic, but I suspect it has meaningful implications for brands.
Aspiration assumes that consumers are looking outward. Recognition assumes they are looking inward.
One asks products to transform identity. The other asks products to articulate it. The difference becomes visible in categories where consumers are given some degree of authorship.
Customisation is an obvious example, but not because consumers necessarily want unlimited choice. In many cases, they seem to want something more specific: the ability to make products legible to themselves.
I saw this play out during Zhianka's first pop-up
The custom charm station was initially designed as an experiment. We expected people to enjoy it. We did not expect the level of engagement it generated.
What surprised me was not that customers customised their jewellery. It was how they did it.
People spent considerable time debating individual charms. Conversations rarely revolved around aesthetics alone. Instead, customers tried to map objects to experiences, personalities, memories, relationships, or aspects of themselves that they felt attached to.
One customer wanted a charm that reminded her of a city she had lived in. Another wanted to commemorate a friendship.
Someone else spent nearly twenty minutes deciding between two charms because one represented who she had been growing up, while the other reflected who she felt she was becoming.
The question that emerged repeatedly was not: "Which one looks best?"
It was: "Which one feels more like me?"
Personalisation is often misunderstood
Brands sometimes interpret the rise of customisation as a demand for more options. I am not convinced that is the full story. More options can easily become exhausting.
What consumers seem to value is meaningful participation.
They want to arrange, select, combine, and interpret products in ways that feel personally coherent. The product becomes less of a finished statement and more of a framework within which identity can be expressed.
This is perhaps why custom charm jewellery has been so compelling across markets.
The individual charm matters. But the arrangement matters more. The consumer is not simply purchasing components. They are constructing a narrative.
And narratives tend to create stronger attachment than objects alone.
What this means for founders
For founders, this shift may require a slightly different understanding of branding. The traditional goal of branding was often to create aspiration at scale.
Increasingly, the challenge may be to create systems flexible enough for consumers to see themselves inside them. This does not mean abandoning point of view.
It means creating products that are open enough to accommodate multiple interpretations while remaining coherent.
The brands that feel culturally relevant today are often not the ones imposing identity.They are the ones helping consumers organise identities that are already fragmented, evolving, and deeply personal.
About the author
I’m Urjaa Mishra, founder at Zhianka, a brand centred on nostalgia jewellery and everyday pieces designed for long-term wear. I write about the intersection of design, consumer behaviour, and how memory shapes what people choose to buy and keep. My work focuses on curating jewellery that holds meaning beyond trends, crafted in materials like 18k gold PVD coated stainless steel.