Written By Elisa Moraes Liu
Gunn Style Watch (@gunnstylewatch) is an Instagram account run by junior Dajiana Huang that features a variety of outfits and fashion styles from students. Each post includes pictures of what the student being featured is wearing, along with a quote and where the student got each piece of their outfit.
Huang has always had an interest in fashion, sprouting from when she first discovered the fashion community on YouTube in middle school. This interest led her to create the account in the beginning of her junior year. “I thought this would be a good way to learn about other people’s personal styles and their perspective on fashion,” Huang said. “I don’t really want to accomplish much with the account other than just to showcase the diverse styles at Gunn.”
A lot of Huang’s inspiration for the account comes from blogs, including Tokyo Fashion (@tokyofashion) and NYC looks (nyc-looks.com). “I like to look at different street style blogs that showcase fashion from across the globe, which really inspired me to do the same for Gunn,” Huang said.
However, the journey of Gunn Style Watch didn’t begin there. A similar video version called Style Watch was piloted by Huang in her freshman year. Ever since then, Huang has created six Style Watch video segments for Titan Broadcast News (TBN) in addition to the account. Although she loves both, Huang would like to remain focused on the Instagram account. “I’m focusing on producing content for the Instagram account now because it’s less stressful and time consuming than having to interview people on camera,” Huang said.
The most recent Style Watch video, which aired on TBN on Feb. 8, focuses on teacher style instead of students. It features four different Gunn teachers, and they describe their high school styles and how it compares to their current style. “I knew I wanted to do a teacher’s style feature for a while, like since freshman year, but I never really got around to it since I didn’t know that many teachers,” Huang said. Running the Instagram account helped her achieve this goal. “I was able to get a lot of student input by making a post on Instagram asking which teachers I should feature, which helped me narrow down the teachers I wanted to interview,” she said.
Huang posts on the Instagram account three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On these days, she finds people whose outfits look interesting and stylish to interview and photograph. When posting, Huang also makes sure to alternate by gender and grade. “I think it’s important to represent grade level and gender equally,” Huang said. “I also try to feature a range of different styles to add to this diversity.”
Being the admin of Gunn Style Watch has also helped Huang personally. “I struggle a lot with having to go up to people and talk to them,” Huang said. “So I feel like giving myself a set schedule of three people per week gives me an incentive to go out and meet new people, and I feel like I’ve definitely become more outgoing and easygoing as a result.”
According to Huang, there is no secret to being featured on GunnStyleWatch. “I’d just say that people should keep wearing what they like and what makes them feel good,” Huang said. “Regardless of whether they’ll be featured on Gunn Style Watch or not, if they just wear what makes them happy I feel like that’s the most important thing.” Additionally, Huang points out that not everyone can be featured. “I’m just one person and it’s hard for me to see every single person’s outfit every single day,” she said. “It’d be awesome if I could feature every single person at school, but that’s just not possible since I have a lot of other responsibilities and commitments, and each post takes a lot of time and effort to produce.”
Huang plans to continue running the account until she graduates but has not yet planned for what will happen to the account after. “I’m not sure if I’ll pass the account on after I graduate,” Huang said. “But it’s definitely an idea that I’m considering.”
As for Huang, her future plans are much larger than Gunn Style Watch.“I definitely want to pursue both photography and fashion later in life, maybe not in conjunction with each other, but I have considered going into fashion photography,” she said. “That’s a whole different playing field than Gunn Style Watch though.”
