The Identity Economy is here. And most brands are still selling offers & services.
What Demna's Gucci debut reveals about desire... and the positioning mistake costing your brand its best clients
In January 2025, Demna walked into one of the most famous fashion houses on earth and did something nobody predicted.
He didn’t come to save Gucci. He didn’t modernise it. He didn’t honour the legacy or torch the archive or issue some carefully worded press release about “reimagining luxury for a new generation.” Yawn
He staged a family portrait.
La Famiglia – Gucci’s FW26 show – wasn’t a fashion collection. It was a character menu.
The Milanese Mob Wife with her old Jackie bag.
The Tom Ford nostalgia siren.
The internet f*ck rap boy.
The looksmaxxing gym bro in a double-breasted suit he’d make his whole personality.
Row after row after row of archetypes. Ready-made identities. Personalities you could step into.
The fashion press called it a “theatre of identity.” One critic put it plainly: “Identity itself is the accessory.”
And here’s the thing. They thought they were reviewing a fashion show.
They were actually watching a masterclass in why luxury brands have always won… and why most personal brands are still not getting what makes people buy.
Let’s dive in…
The Identity Economy isn’t new. Luxury just weaponised it first.
Let’s start with binning a misconception.
You’ve been told that luxury brands win because of quality. Craftsmanship. Heritage. The weight of the hardware, the history of the house, the fact that it takes eighteen months to make a single whatever by the hands of sixth generation artisan.
True. To a point. But also: irrelevant in the new age of Luxury. Especially according to Gen Z.
Luxury brands don’t win on quality, not anymore. They win because they understood something about human psychology decades before behavioural economists even gave it a name.
We don’t buy things. We buy better versions of ourselves.
Self-discrepancy theory is a real thing – shout out to Edward Tory Higgins – that describes the gap between your actual self (who you are right now) and your ideal self (who you’re desperately, quietly trying to become).
When that gap exists, it creates tension. Dissatisfaction. A low hum of “not quite yet.” Or worse “I’m not good enough until I’m…” Yikes!
Luxury brands don’t sell into your actual self.
They sell into your ideal self.
Every campaign, every image, every carefully chosen move is engineered to say: buy this, and close the gap.
And Demna just built it in public, on a runway, in Milan, with a cast of nine distinct human archetypes and the balls to call it fashion.
Guccimaxxing, decoded for personal brands
Before we go further, we need to talk about Guccimaxxing.
Yes, it sounds like something a 23-year-old invented on TikTok. Because it is. And it’s also, accidentally, the most accurate description of identity-gap purchasing behaviour that anyone has produced in years on a massive scale.
The premise: buying into Gucci doesn’t just get you a bag. It “maxes” your stats. Your confidence. Your flirtiness. Your command of a room. Your ability to walk into a restaurant and be looked at before you’ve said a word.
If we’re tiring of quiet luxury then this is the antidote! Maximalism is back, baby!
GQ ran with it. The internet ate it up. And underneath the meme energy – underneath the “Guccimaxxing your rizz” content (things we say now!) – is a completely serious psychological mechanism.
→ Compensatory consumption. Sounds fancy, hey?
Well, the research shows that when people feel a gap in self-worth, status, or belonging, they use symbolic purchases to repair it.
Not for function. For self-concept. For the internal story that shifts from “I’m not quite there yet” to “I am exactly who I always knew I was.”
Think Maslow’s Hierarchy with self-actualisation at the top. That’s the essence of buying luxury.
Demna made it visible. Made it OTT camp. Made it theatrical – which, in 2026, is the only honest way to show people what they’re actually doing.
We are all, on some level, Guccimaxxing something.
The question is: what identity are you selling?
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The 3-Inch Gap Where All Decisions Are Made
Here’s what this means for your personal brand.
Your ideal client is sitting in an identity gap right now. They know it, even if they’d never describe it that way.
That 3-inch gap – between how they are today and who they want to be – is where every purchasing decision is actually made.
Not in your proposal. Not in your six month coaching container. Not in your carefully structured case study about that one client who got a 400% ROI.
In. The. Gap. (Not the clothes shop, obvs!)
And the personal brands that understand this – the ones that hold that gap with “I see you” energy – never have to negotiate. Never have to chase. Never have to write another email subject line that begins with “just following up.”
They become the only logical answer to a question their client didn’t know how to ask.
La Famiglia works because Demna didn’t ask “what do people want to wear?” He asked: “Who do they want to be… and can I build them an exaggerated costume for that person?”
The Mob Wife archetype isn’t a jacket. It’s an entire self-concept, complete with posture, social history, and the particular way she dismisses a room without moving. When a woman buys into that look, she isn’t buying fabric, cut or even a label. She’s buying the feeling of already being her.
That’s not just clothing. That’s identity resolution. And it sells at full price, every damn time.
What most Experts get wrong… and why it’s costing you £££££
Coaches, consultants, strategists, experts of every variety are marketing to the wrong question. Sorry, not sorry for this nudge in the ribs.
You’re answering “what do I get?” when your ideal client is secretly asking “who do I become?”
The deliverables. The methodology. The number of sessions, the frameworks, the what-happens-after-we-start. Useful logistics but answering a question nobody’s actually asking.
When a brand’s identity is tightly aligned with how a client sees themselves, they will choose that brand even when it’s objectively less convenient. Even when there’s a cheaper option. They’ll even wait for what you’re offering for extended periods of time which, in turn, makes it feel even more valuable.
Identity-congruent behaviour doesn’t require willpower. It doesn’t require convincing. It simply requires that your brand holds, clearly and specifically, the identity your client is trying to move towards.
You’re not selling services. Your holding a mirror toward who their client is trying to become.
The client walks towards the mirror. The sale happens in the gap.
The Personal Mirror Moment
So. Let’s make this uncomfortably specific. Cos I know you love making bold moves.
What identity does your brand make possible?
Not what problem do you solve. Not what transformation do you promise.
What specific self-concept does working with you unlock… and is that self-concept desirable, distinct, and credible enough to justify your price?
Because if you can’t answer that with one sentence, without flinching, you’re not positioning yet. You’re just word-salading.
Demna can answer it in a single silhouette. The Mob Wife archetype needs exactly zero copy. You see her and you know, immediately, whether you are her, want to be her, or are quietly afraid you of being her.
That’s your work today.
Not more content. Not a better offer stack. Not a rebrand in the sense of new colours and a font that costs £400.
Identity architecture.
Knowing exactly which gap your ideal client is sitting in. Holding that gap with enough specificity that when they encounter your brand, the only thought they have is: yes. That’s who I’m becoming.
And then doing what Demna did: building a whole world around it.
Psst… Gucci quiz anyone? https://www.gucci.com/uk/en_gb/nst/la-famiglia-wardrobe - Ge-ni-us! 😎
