Why do we want what we want?
René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire says our desires are rarely born in isolation. We don’t simply want something because we, alone, dreamed it up. We want because we’ve seen others want. We borrow our longings from the people around us—sometimes consciously, often not.
Nowhere is this clearer than in beauty.
Think of the lipstick shade that suddenly feels irresistible after a celebrity wears it. The skincare product that becomes “essential” because TikTok made it viral. The eyebrow shape, nail style, or haircut that didn’t cross your mind until you saw it praised on someone else.
We learn what is “beautiful” by watching where desire gathers. The crowd makes its choice, and the current sweeps us with it.
Beware: mimetic desire can leave us empty because when our longings are borrowed, satisfaction is borrowed too. The lipstick sits unused in the drawer, the trendy contour palette doesn’t make us feel more like ourselves, or the haircut that looked radiant on someone else feels foreign on our own reflection.
So what do we do with this knowledge? We don’t escape desire—humans are mimetic creatures by nature—but we can choose whose desire we mirror.
We can chase the fleeting wants of a crowd, always one step behind the trend. Or we can tune ourselves to quieter models: mentors, artists, ancestors, or even our own future selves. Imagine asking: What would my truest self desire? What reflection would make me feel most like me, not just most like everyone else?
Beauty is not just the imitation of someone else’s desire. At its best, it’s the art of breaking the chain, of interrupting the mimicry long enough to ask what feels authentic.
When we do that, beauty stops being a performance for the crowd and starts becoming a communion with the self.