The 2026 Rebrand:
A mindset over the material
Every year in the past 3 or so years, I’ve offered myself a month long metamorphosis. I alluded to shedding my caterpillar persona into that of a butterfly. Overnight. When midnight would strike I would swallow as many grapes under a table, drink my sparkling cider, and hope that the new Catori was on her way. I wanted to be someone else. I wanted the be baddie on instagram.I imagined myself in Turks and Cacos dressed in all black with makeup that I had never really tried, and clothes that I wouldn’t necessarily like, but looked good on the somebody like Jada Wada. I promised myself the best rebrand was coming and alluded to anyone who would listen that the best was yet to come.
2025 was hard. Getting a job was hard, working a job was hard, dating was hard, being someone ambitious was hard, everything just felt so hard. When I turned 20, I thought I would suddenly sprout into my adult body and mindset. As I remember a professor once telling me “as your brain develops you’ll just feel all this extra room in your mind for the things that matter.” I imagined all of the ways I would decorate the interior of my adult mind— a conversation pit here, coffee table there, and a beautiful chandelier above. In all this space I would solve all the worlds problems, ask the most philosophical questions, and somehow make it to the MET Gala. It was just a matter of the first steps of becoming the baddie I needed to be. The word baddie would haunt me. What did it mean. It felt so clear, yet so vague. Is it aesthetic, a mind set, there truly was levels to the shit that I could not quite figure out. So as another year began to swing into motion, I wondered what I needed to do to become someone else.
The more and more I thought about who I needed to become the further and further away the dream felt. It felt like an impossible hoop to jump through and the thought of it all would at times send me into a depression. Comparison is said to be the thief of joy, but the get away driver is hard expectations on myself. That isn’t to say that I am not ambitious, or hard working, or shouldn’t want myself to advance. But it is to say that in a year full of joys and disappointments expectations that are unmoving was the problem. This year I think in a lot of people’s lives was the year to roll with the punches, and for along time I just couldn’t. Each punch felt like a blow, everything felt personal, and when I couldn’t become someone else for the reasons that be, it felt like a comment of who I was instead of the goal itself.
Now that 2026 has reared its head, I look to the year that is to come my way. The internet bursting open with not only bad news, but talks of rebranding. Not necessarily the changing of habits, or ideas, or hobbies, but how we appear. A “rebrand” something so technical, so sterile, and so professional in language, rather than personal. The rebrand of our marketing on social media, the rebrand in what we wear, and the rebrand of our signature hair styles. And for the first time I didn’t want to rebrand necessarily my style, or become someone that didn’t fit me. I wanted to change the mindset. In the new year I wanna roll with the punches. I wanna take the hits and hit right back. I want to take the wins and relish in them knowing that I am deserving. I want to embrace the kind of confidence that feels like flying for the first time, not just when I get my hair done, or post on instagram but even when my hair is a mess and my outfit is nothing special. That’s what I think 2026 means. The year of the horse, the wild, the free, and the bold.
As the days of my 21st year start to roll in so does a little more room in my brain. Inch my inch, foot by foot, I buy a few decorations here and there. A painting on this wall, a mirror on the other, and I save a little everyday for that conversation pit.