Shoes Rs30,000; bag Rs110,000; watch Rs50,000. Confidence? Priceless.

These are the familiar lines from reels that float across our screens, playful, aspirational, sometimes ironic. But behind the snappy rhythm lies something more complicated: a performance of class, stitched together from borrowed symbols, quiet anxiety, and the unspoken pressure to appear as if we belong.

In Pakistan, class has always been a visible language. But today, it's less about income brackets and more about the optics of belonging. Who gets seen, who gets heard, who gets served first in a shop, these are shaped not only by money, but by how convincingly one can dress the part. And so the upper-middle class, with its curated wardrobes and brunch filters, becomes more than a lifestyle segment. It becomes an aspiration model, a silent code others are expected to........

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