The disclosed embodiments provide a system that renders a view component in a user interface of an application on an electronic device. During operation, the system generates, from content describing a view for display in the user interface, a styling path that includes a position of the view component in a content hierarchy of the view. Next, the system selects, by a styling component executing on a processor in the electronic device, a style context for the view component from a collection of style contexts by matching at least a subset of the styling path to an identifier for the style context. The system then uses the style context to render the view component in the view.