But it’s worth it to highlight fresh, unique wardrobe choices that show personality and the courage to wear what you believe in. You think you’ve got some major style? Know someone else who’s always looking ferosh? Think the world needs to see what she can do? Send us an email with some photos and she could be the next fashionista celebrated right here.]

As part of this Campus Couture series, each week we invite you, our dear readers, to submit photos of yourselves or your super fashionista friends so that we can celebrate and ogle your style, and get some inspiration for our own wardrobes. And this week, Mary did just that. All the way from Paris!

Upon opening Mary’s email and seeing her request to be featured in Campus Couture, I already knew she’d be perfect. I mean, Parisian girls know their style, so I didn’t even have to look at her pictures to know she’d look flawless. And when I did, my suspicions were confirmed. Mary looked put-together, chic, and gorgeous. You can tell she puts thought into her outfits, accessorizing perfectly, but doesn’t look like she tried too hard. And that, my friends, is the sign of someone with true style.

Being a math and computer science major, Mary might be somewhat of a geek (her words, not mine!), but you’d never know it by looking at her. If she’s half as good at her studies as she is at getting dressed, Mary is going to do very big things in her life.

Name: Mary Yasmine Arrouche
Year: Junior
Major: Computer Science and Mathematics

1. Describe Your Personal Style: Preppy, Classy, Chic. Fabulous (that’s what people tell me )… I only wear skirts and dresses; I’ve not worn pants for 2 years now. I’m tall (5 ft 7) and slim (size 0/2 depending on the designers) so I guess I can wear pretty much anything I want, but I just don’t find pants comfortable. I’m also in love with high heels. I recently bought a pair of 4 inch Louboutins and I have set my eyes on Alexander McQueen armadillo shoes (graduation gift much?). Oh, and I do not repeat outfits.

2. I can’t leave my house without: My purse. My life is in my purse, that’s why it’s so big.

3. What is your favorite store to shop at? I have a lot of favorite designers (Maison Martin Margiela, Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Marchesa, Marc Jacobs, Viktor&Rolf, Balmain….) which I can fortunately afford. (Thanks Mom & Dad for supporting your daughter’s sick obsession.) So my favorite stores are the designer boutiques and department stores (Le Printemps, Le Bon Marché which are the equivalent of Saks or Bergdorf) but also like Zara, H&M…. I mean when I like a piece, the price is not really relevant.

4. What/who is your biggest style influence? Well, I guess many of my friends call me the real life Blair Waldorf for a reason. I also like Rachel Zoe and Tinsley Mortimer (by the way, don’t you think these two look alike?) as well as The Olsen twins and Victoria Beckham’s style. But as I said before, I try to stick to my preppy creed.

5. What’s your favorite trend, past or present? I like floral prints or anything floral. I also like high waisted skirts and colorful, well-cut coats, which are for me the definition of chic.

Whitney Port, ex-“Hill’s” star and current star of “The City,” recently showed her newest Whitney Eve collection at the Fresh Faces in Fashion event in Miami, FL.  Co-star Lauren Conrad has proven to us all that just because someone dresses well or has trendy personal style, does not make them a good designer (or even a good discount designer).  Arch-nemesis Heidi Montag has also proven that turning yourself into real-life Barbie does not mean you can change your career choice daily: you cannot be a “singer” one day and a “designer” the next.

After two boring, copycat lines from these battling blondes failed miserably, we all expected (and maybe hoped?) that Whitney’s would be equally lame.  Just because of her MTV status, Whitney is a character that we love to hate.  We deem her untalented, famous for being famous and of course we all know that her “jobs” are staged for the show.  Before her lines are even shown, we get ready to read Whitney-bashing reviews and joke about how much they suck.

Whitney’s first line, although more creative than Lauren’s (and obviously Heidi’s) was still somewhat expected.  The patterns and details were unique, but the hemlines reflected the lifestyle of a typical Hollywood Barbie.  Look after look, models pranced down the runway in the miniest of mini’s, minimal coverage throughout. The actual design wasn’t terrible, but because of the skank-factor we were still free to ridicule.

But after viewing her latest, I’ve gotta say, she’s proved us all wrong.  Surprisingly, Whitney’s latest line was more conservative and mature but stayed edgy, creative, and sexy.  There were knee-length skirts and somehow even floor-length skirts?  An appearance of pants also made the cut while a pair of white lace leggings supplemented a mini-skirt.

This didn’t look like some boring line by a wannabe designer; Whitney’s designs were the real deal. Could it be that a Hill’s star actually has talent?? Could Whitney Port be the next Marc Jacobs, Gwen Stefani, or, dare I say it, DVF?

With a clear vision and obvious talent, I think Whitney Port may be a not-so-reality-TV success story.

If you’re anything like me, you’re a sucker for a name brand. Despite wanting to be above it, I die when I see the new Marc Jacobs handbags or Prada runway show at Fashion Week. Also, if you’re anything like me, your bag costs more than what’s in your bank account and realistically you shouldn’t be buying that Chanel watch that costs more than your rent.

And that’s where consignment shops come in. Once you get past the fact that you’re not going to have a Saks-esque experience, these stores are a goldmine of high-end fashion for a college budget. However, rooting through said stores can be a lot of work and not exactly the most pleasant experience. So you turn to Ebay; it’s great for designer labels, but you soon learn (often the hard way) that you never know what you’re exactly getting.

Enter, online consignment! The way of the shopping future is here, and it’s named WWW and wearing Gucci loafers.

Consignment is just like picking through a closet that isn’t yours. The closet of that girl on campus who always looks super pulled together and fabulous. The one you want to hate because she always looks so damn perfect, but you can’t hate because she’s just so darn nice. She’s got a smile that matches her flawless wardrobe and handbags, and you would just kill to raid her closet for just one night.

Well, now you can! Christabelle is that girl and she’s opened her closet to you! OK, so maybe she’s not actually letting you rifle through her personal closet, but Christabelle’s Closet, an online consignment shop, is every college girl’s dream. This online shop has new or nearly new designer clothes that would make any savvy college girl gasp. From Gucci Flats to Rebecca Minkoff bags, Christabelle’s got it all, including a fully stocked designer label $10 section chock full of Michael Star tees and Intermix dresses. Yeah, ten freaking dollars.

And Christabelle is as sweet as she is fashion savvy, offering a very haute deal for CollegeCandy readers:

She’s giving you (and me!) 15% OFF ANYTHING in her closet for the entire month of March just by entering the code COLLEGECANDY when you check out.

I know I’ll be using it when I finally snag those Dolce & Gabbana heels that I’ve had my eye on for-ev-er. And probably a few other gorgeous things she’s got hanging in that virtual closet of hers.

With a deal like this, soon you’ll be that girl on campus that everyone wants to hate because you’re always looking so good. And they’ll want to hate you even more when they know how little it cost you to do it.

Yes, you can afford to wear this dress!

The basement of my parents’ house is a graveyard of dresses from years gone by.  Prom dresses, formal dresses, dresses worn to weddings – you name it, and you can find it down there. Seriously, I put Katherine Heigl’s 27 dresses to shame. And the worst part of it all is that these precious and costly dresses only saw the light of day once in their entire existence. They got all prettied up, made their debut, and then got stuffed back in the closet never to be seen again. Honestly, it’s a little heart-breaking.

In this day and age of recession and cutbacks on my wardrobe, I simply can’t afford to keep on living this way. Which is why RentTheRunway.com is saving my life. Their slogan is “Love. Wear. Return.” and one look at their website will have you fashion-orgasming, I promise.

This mail-order service allows women to rent high-end fashions for one-tenth of the retail price. Running from $50 to $200 for a four-night loan, that Diane Von Furstenberg dress you’ve been eyeing will be delivered to your doorstep, in TWO SIZES just in case. After you’ve had your fun, you simply mail it back to the company, and they take care of the dry-cleaning. It’s so effortless I may slip into a fashion coma.

Do you know what this means? Never spending a fortune on a dress you’ll probably wear once before it goes out of style. Always looking better than everyone else at the party because you’re in the latest Christian Siriano design. And finally, the end of outfit-repeating. I’m literally hyperventilating at the thought.

Praise be couture, Rent the Runway is mecca. Now I just need somewhere to go. If only it were acceptable to wear Chanel to a frat party.

Yup! Nicole Richie is indeed preggers.

The top designer duds at discount prices.

I knew Ryan Seacrest wasn’t gay!

World’s worst name.

Save thousands on your education!

Gossip and rumors are main staples on college campuses across the nation, and the website Juicy Campus (which was recently shut down), shows just how far people are willing to go to spread gossip. At some point in everyone’s life, gossip comes up – good or bad. Gossip, in moderation, can be just another thing, but in a culture that obsesses about pop culture and dishing dirt (think of websites like Perez Hilton), the fixation of dishing dirt about someone else isn’t going away any time soon.

Although many of us love to gather on Monday nights to watch Gossip Girl and watch the scandals of the Upper East Side unfold, no one likes it when their own personal life is exposed in the cafeteria over wilted lettuce or when private information rolls off the lips of classmates before the professor starts the class. While gossip may seem like something that comes and goes, it can leave its dirty scars behind all too often.

Maybe because it’s an all-women’s college and women often use each other to bring others down, or maybe it is the size of the university, but the Hollins rumor mill never seems to cease on campus. It constantly peeks its nasty little head around the corner for students that least expect it. Whether it hurts friendships, ruins reputations, or isolates students from campus events — gossip can cause tremendous damage.

Remember when my mom and I met with the President to discuss the bullying that happened my first year? Well, upon arrival at Hollins for my sophomore year, the student body buzzed (never to my face, though) with the rumor that Hollins implemented a bullying policy because of me… being a bully. No one knew that my mom and I brought forth the issues that happened with me because of a bully on campus, demanding the President to come up with a bullying policy. No one knew what happened to me as a first year. However, everyone seemed to accuse me of things that I did not do.

Time after time, I have met girls on campus who tell me how “mean” I sounded from other students’ tales of meetings with me. One of my friends was even warned by another student to not be my friend. Whenever I hear these stories, the people who spoke out against me are always peers I have never met myself. They are usually students who I have never had contact with. How can anyone pass judgment before they have met someone else, especially in the context of putting someone else down? I don’t know how anyone could go around talking so negatively about someone else, when they have never personally had an experience with that person.

I have seen gossip make people unable to maintain decent friendships on campus, as well. For example, this girl named Emma (name changed) was known around campus to have a “private jet,” an extensive collection of designer apparel in her closet, and people even talked of her having major connections to the sports industry. Girls on campus thought they would take advantage of Emma by befriending her, only to go into her closet and steal her designer clothes. Not only would they go and steal her stuff, but they would talk about taking from her because she deserved it as a “rich kid.”

Truth is, Emma does not have a private jet (although her dad is a pilot), she doesn’t have immediate connections to the sports industry, and the only designer clothes she owns come from outlet malls. Now, whenever students meet Emma for the first time, they can’t get past her “rich kid” reputation. How can Emma expect to make friends on campus when everyone seems to focus on what they heard about her, instead of actually getting to know her?

Talk spreads like wildfire. I see it all the time. Just walk into the cafeteria on Monday morning and other people know where you were over the weekend. How? My first reaction to this, when it happened to me, was that those who were asking found out from Facebook. Since then I have had to make my Facebook entirely private, along with many other students on campus, in order to have any privacy. Though the gossip has not ceased.

Worst of all, it doesn’t help when the administration plays into the whole “Guess what I heard about you” game. On more than one occasion I have heard of students going to speak with the Dean of Students or head of Residence Life, only to come out with gossip from other students told to them by the authority figure who uses the gossip against them. If the administration lends an ear to gossip, of course the student body is going to keep it up.

I have heard many rumors about myself here at Hollins, and 99% of them never happened, resemble nothing from the truth, and have no merit. At first, I am not going to lie, the rumors really bothered me. A lot of them were hurtful, and a lot of them have stuck (despite not being true), but there comes a point when you have to displace yourself from that, even when it seems like everyone is talking about you. There have been so many times when I have seen my fellow peers break down about something that was said about them, and even though you want to stand up and say “No – that’s not true! That didn’t happen!” you can’t, and it doesn’t seem right or fair.

If sisterhood exists at Hollins, then why does gossip own the souls of most students? Whenever someone hears something that is obviously not true, no one speaks up – they just go along with it, and that is unacceptable. I am sick of hearing gossip about people and myself, especially at a school that talks about the loyalty and respectfulness of its students. If Hollins continues to let rumors take hold of the student body, I believe there will be no way to return to a clean, respectful state in the student body. No one will be able to avoid it, and that just seems entirely too extreme.

I know Hollins isn’t alone in this gossip battle – tell me about your school and how big of an impact gossip has on the student body? What is the worst rumor you have ever heard about yourself or someone else? Do you think gossip, in moderation, is healthy or just vicious in any degree? Time to share your story!

While there are the inevitable “mean girls” in your life, I can’t help but wonder: did these girls exist before shows like Gossip Girl, 90210 or the movie Mean Girls?

Maybe.

Do I think these caddy, petty, deceptive females existed before Hollywood decided to bank on this character flaw? Yes. Do I think they were as idolized, accepted and vicious? No.

I do believe Hollywood has aided in the level of meanness that some females like to inflict on others. Would a bunch of girls from a neighboring high school have vandalized a girl from my high school’s house before vixen Valerie from 90210 inflicted evil on Kelly and Donna? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

I feel, as with many aspects of the media, we’re affected by the actions of those we watch, idolize, despise and just plain want to be, on television and in the movies. We are influenced by the size-0 demographic in this country; don’t tell me you haven’t looked at a celebrity on television and wanted to look like her. So, what is any different from wanting to act like her?

I think we definitely have become meaner from the shows we see on television, just like we strive to be thinner and wear designer clothes like the actresses we see on television. While the latter is not a better alternative, we need to remember to be individuals. We must remind ourselves that TV and movies are not real and that actors and actresses do not face the realistic repercussions of writing a Burn Book, or keying someone’s car when they steal our boyfriend, i.e., losing your friends.

Have you become a Mean Girl? Have you been affected by a Mean Girl?

So, where to look for the best finds, as well as the best prices? Check out these stores and, if they’re not near you, pop on their websites!

Target – This is the mini-mall of a college girl’s dream. Here you’ll not only find the best bedspreads and towels, snacks and sodas, but you can now also peruse the clothing section, which seems to be coming out with new high-end-like lines every other day. With prices ranging from $9.99 and up, you’re sure to find some cute basics and exotic prints at this fine, serious leap from Wal-Mart.

Marshalls/TJ Maxx - Get ready to dig, dig, dig, but dig with the best of them because if you do, ladies, you can find the best Seven Jeans, Joe’s Jeans and Theory shirts all for a quarter of the price than on the racks at Nordstroms and Bloomies. Who said we can’t have designer trends in college, despite our almost empty pockets? (Why, I was just in Marshalls today on my lunch break – productive, I know – and I snagged a pair of Joe’s Jeans for just $69.99, a quarter the price than the $200 plus pairs at Bloomies!)

Salvation Army - I’m not kidding here, kids. My girlfriend scored a vintage fur coat at a salvation army in Brooklyn for $10 bucks and rocked her campus hard in the winter. Go for it.

Thrift. Thrift. Thrift. If you don’t have a Salvation Army in your town, head over to your local thrift and/or consignment shop for the best digs. I spent about two hours in Beacon’s Closet in Brooklyn one Saturday and wound up with some of the cutest tops for day and night that were unique and cheap. These stores also happen to be heavenly for accessories and bags.

Sample Sales. Dig up your local newspaper and see if there are any clothing sample sales in your area (yes ladies, they do exist!) and hit ‘em up. Designer duds for less? Sign me up!

Of course, malls and outlets are great places to stock up on clothes, (Editor’s Note: Have you seen those new JC Penney commercials? Their stuff is lookin’ gooooood!) basics and all your other necessities, but if you’re looking to spice up your life, eh hem, I mean wardrobe…try these places out!

(Photo courtesy of monsoontrust.com)