selffashioned

Selffashioned is a term that describes the act or result of shaping one's own identity or appearance, often through deliberate choices in dress, grooming, speech, and public presentation. The form is usually hyphenated as self-fashioning in scholarly writing, with selffashioned appearing in older texts or in non-academic usage. In critical discourse, self-fashioning describes how individuals construct and perform persona within social, political, and cultural contexts.

Historically, the concept has been central to Renaissance studies, where writers, patrons, and actors used portraits, letters, performances, and printed texts to craft a legible public image. Stephen Greenblatt's Renaissance Self-Fashioning (1980) helped foreground the idea that identity can be consciously assembled rather than passively received.

In contemporary contexts, selffashioned practices extend to autobiography, celebrity branding, and digital self-presentation on social media, illustrating ongoing negotiations between authenticity and performativity. The term remains useful for describing how people manage impressions and stylistic choices as part of identity formation.

Related concepts include self-fashioning, identity, performance, and fashion studies.