What is self-styling? This term is a catch-all for what most interests me: how we use language - verbal and body, visual and textual - to construct ourselves for others.

In the world of fashion, the stylist is the consultant who selects the clothing and accessories worn by a model, actor or other public figure for a project or appearance. In this creative role, the stylist helps to style a person's image for public consumption. This makes the stylist something of a personal artist, or stylist of the self.

Today, we are each our own personal artist and self-stylist.

Perhaps more now than any other time in history, people use pictures, words and gestures to project images of themselves to the world. Of course this is not a new phenomenon; museums and libraries are full of portraits, manuscripts and other archives that document our human history of self-portrayal and projection. As a famous example, historian Derek Wilson questioned whether Hans Holbein's hulking portrait of Henry VIII (1537) is 'the best piece of propaganda ever':

Hans Holbein the Younger, Henry VIII (1537)

In explaining the glorifying, intimidating purpose of the Holbein portrait, Wilson recalls that 'the need for leaders to project a favourable image is as old as politics itself.' This is certainly true, and in these overbearing and insane political times, it is vital that we register - consciously - how our leaders are crafting and projecting themselves to us.

But this crafting is not only true of our leaders. Thanks to social media and the current acceleration of identity politics, our engagement with self-styling is near constant. When we engage with the media, we are quite often observing the styling of others or styling ourselves for others to observe. The art of self-styling is a postmodern, digital obsession.

Vladimir Nabokov once declared that 'for me, "style" is matter', and Martin Amis since claims that style is 'intrinsic to perception' and is, ultimately, 'morality'. The projection of style in writing might be seen as a matter of ethics - mattering more than substance, but then also bearing that same responsibility. This is only more true when style projects personal identity. The point is therefore to engage consciously with self-styling when it occurs - to recognise how the art influences us, and how we might be using it to influence others.