If you follow fashion, interior design styles or even branding trends, you might find it hard to keep up with the rate at which preferences and designs seem to change. How can one shoe style be fine last year but out of style this year? Or a typeface that was super popular a few years ago is now dated. Should we even care?

As usual, the answer isn’t a simple “yes” or “no”, but more of a “sometimes” and in some instances. Especially in the case of your brand identity. Take for instance the trend of “anti-branding.” Anti-branding, which strips a brand down to the absolute bare minimum of what makes it recognizable, seeks to connect with audiences that don’t want to be marketed to, but rather prefer to support brands that seem authentic and relatable. Sounds like a great trend to hop on, right? But, this trend doesn’t work for all brands or with all audiences. If you’re a small business without a super strong brand recognition, you probably shouldn’t try it.

So what to do? Well, the key to analyzing whether or not a trend should be embraced is knowing who your company is at the core. Having a strong brand identity acts as your guide when it’s time to make branding–and really any company-related–decisions. And a really, really good brand identity will give you enough wiggle room to participate in certain trends while remaining true to who you are.

It’s sort of like deciding whether or not you should try the wide leg dress pants (men), or sheer dresses and shirts trend (women) this year. Me and my high waisted jeans can’t wait to find out.