As the epitome of status-based regulation, the scope and substantive content of consumer protection law hinges on how the consumer is conceptualised. Engaging with the notion of the “social imaginary”, this lecture aims to establish a conceptual framework for a radical reimaging of the consumer, one that moves away from the sovereign, rational individual whose welfare maximising character pertains predominantly to the efficiency of the internal market. Instead, if the transformative power and potential of consumer protection law is to be exploited, it is submitted that the consumer should be conceived of as a socially constructed complex human, harbouring a plurality of values and characteristics that extend beyond market efficiency. It is here that the transformative potential of consumer law comes to the fore; we can, to take one example, also begin to reimagine consumer law as being concerned not only with protection through the attribution of rights but also with imposing societal obligations on consumers. This lecture – which forms part of a broader, ongoing project aiming to historicise and contextualise consumer protection and policy, in order to better understand who and what is it for – aims to identify a framework to critically unpack and reimagine the dominant concept of the consumer and consumer market(s).