At a school that isn’t very fashion-oriented, it’s hard for UW-Eau Claire students who are interested in fashion to know where to turn. That was senior Brianna Noeldner’s thought when she and her boyfriend, senior Adam Bergman, created @styleyouwec, an Instagram page for fashion.

Since they started dating in high school, Bergman and Noeldner have been very interested in fashion and both enjoy helping their friends out with fashion-related advice. In December, they turned this advice into an Instagram page.

“There isn’t a place for those people to go, so I thought it’d be a good idea to start a page that kind of just had inspiration, had looks of my own,” Noeldner said. “Then it kind of evolved into adding bits about local stores and accessories, other people’s trends.”

It started as an idea, something they wanted to try for fun, Noeldner said. Now, it is an Instagram page with a decent amount of followers, and they have recently started a Pinterest page as well.

“It’s really come to a full circle of having it be a lot less focused about us and more focused on a lot of other students,” she said. “And really drawing people’s eyes to other people’s fashion and local places in the community that offer clothing and accessories as well.”

At first they just gave out tips and inspiration, but Noeldner said now they are beginning to contact local businesses about doing giveaways as a means of publicity for both parties.

So far, they have partnered with Good & Sturdy, a vintage clothing store on Water Street, and even partnered for a giveaway with Mainstream Boutique on Mall Drive. They are in the process of organizing a photo shoot with Volume One and The Local Store.

“It’s just as simple as me reaching out to people and … asking if they want to pair up with us,” she said. “It doesn’t just help us and give students incentives but it helps them because a lot of students don’t know about these places.”

Having someone to collaborate with on the process has been a big help as well, Bergman said. Despite breaking their 500 followers this week, they still have work to do.

“It helps that we’re guy and girl too because we get to cater to both,” he said. “The majority of our followers are female, so coming up with guy content that appeals to both is kind of difficult.”

To do this, they’ve asked for help from students, asking them to comment on posts with friends they think might be interested in doing photos for them, but Bergman said they haven’t found with any males yet.

However, they are still hopeful. Bergman said the location at Eau Claire is another important factor in the success of their page.

“With the music as well, there’s a lot of artistry here,” he said. “I think people like to show it off in their clothes and their music.”

In addition, there aren’t a lot of blogs or places for college students to find fashion advice catered specifically to the Midwest area.

This is one of the reasons they hope to keep the page in the area. Though the two haven’t finalized plans for the page’s future (Bergman graduates in the spring), Noeldner said she hopes to see it stay and expand.

One of her goals is to have it become more than just this campus, but include other UW-System schools as well.

“It’s like our baby, you know, it’s hard to pass on to other people but I think it could be a really cool thing for our students to experience and kind of pass it down,” she said. “I would love to see it go beyond UW-Eau Claire.”