It’s that time of year, when people start packing up their lives to fit into the ridiculously small storage closets they call dorm rooms.  For some of us, we will be heading back to familiar sights and sounds, having already navigated our way through a couple years of school.  For the rest of us, it will be the first time on campus and the start of a much-hyped period in your life: the college years.

There have been several books written to prepare incoming freshman for all the crazy shiz that will go down during their first year of school.  Their relatives, friends, guidance counselors and even complete strangers will also advise them on how to stay healthy in the cafeteria and how to sneak alcohol into their dorm room.

To really be prepared for your freshman year, however, you should get familiar with the people that will surround you on a daily basis.  Will your roommate be a Loner or a Homesick Child?  Will your lab partner be an Athlete/Ultimate Fan and therefore too busy checking on player stats and scores to write the chemistry report with you?  Only time will tell, so you might as well be prepared.

Here’s the 10 types of freshmen you’ll meet on campus: Read More »

So it’s a new season and that means new trends on all fronts, including one of my personal faves: handbags!

This season keep your eyes open for some of the usual suspects (oversized bags, clutches and pops of color), some rollover from the fall (fringe) and some new looks (well, not necessarily new, but trends we haven’t seen in a while).

Here are some of the biggest bag trends of spring/summer 2009… Read More »

[Every week our style guru takes a celebrity look and breaks it down for you, our poor college fashionista. What does that mean? It means that while the celebrities are spending $5,000 on an ensemble, you don’t have to. All you have to do is click on the goods and - boom - you can buy the entire ensemble. Yes, we know; there is a spot for her in heaven.]

Tie Dye was cool when my mom was my age. Then it was cool again in 7th grade. And let me tell you I tore that trend up. I was just yay shy of deciding that my bat-mitzvah give away should be a tie dyed t-shirt. I LIVED for the days at camp when we would make our own tie-dye. And even though my color palette never turned out quite right (more like murkey brown poo) I still thought I was destined to be a hippie. I rocked tie dye so bright that my eyes hurt just thinking about it.

So when I saw that tie dye was making its 19th comeback, I cringed, I avoided, and I said to myself I wouldn’t wear it.

But then I saw the dresses like the ones on our friends over here, and I saw some really cute ones at Bloomingdales, and Nordstrom and Forever 21 and Urban and, oy, the list goes on. As much as I wanted to fight – kicking and screaming – against the return of tie dye (what’s next? Hypercolor?!) I couldn’t deny the fact that they would look so cute with some woven sandals or high wedges.

The whole tie dye look gives off that “I look cute without even trying” vibe that we all want to convey. And the more I see it, the more I can’t look away. Just like those pictures of Britney’s Britney. (You know what I’m talkin’ about.)

So here is this weeks Celebrity Chic on the Cheap: Color Me Tie Dye Read More »

College brings a whole lot of new experiences, new lessons and new people. But it seems that no matter what school you go to, there are same characters on every campus:

With the Go Green revolution, a lot of us have been making the effort to protect and preserve our environment: trees, animals, reservations. Hemp jewelry is so in right now and vintage is your new passion, right?

Well, guess who’s more passionate than you are? The Neo-hippie, better known as The Empathetic Activist.

The Empathetic Activist feels the pain of the distressed, whether it is animal, mineral or vegetable. When a mouse-trap is set up in the dorms, he or she will be there to protect the rights of our furry friends. When soda cans are thrown in the cafeteria trash, he or she will be there to lecture their peers on the perils of cans in dumps around the world. When a tree is cut down to expand your campus, he or she is there screaming murder through blurred vision…or at least collecting signatures to stop the madness.

The Empathetic Activist cares, but not about material objects. While we’re all spending what little money we have on a spring break wardrobe, the E.A. is perusing the local consignment/ thrift/ vintage shops while munching on some tofu, as he or she is also most likely vegan/vegetarian. (“Animals have rights too!”) And when your favorite neo-hippie is not purchasing vegan Birkenstocks, you will find him or her working for social consciousness, whether it be through debates and discussions with friends or long and heated monologues during class. Read More »

Fall and winter fashion is all about boots, and I don’t mean Uggs. Boots can update any outfit, from that cute dress for the bar to those skinny jeans you wear to class. Luckily, there are tons of different looks to choose from for every style…and every budget.

Check out my boot picks for fall below; from the low end to the highest end, I got somethin’ for everyone.

(Click on the pics for more info/to add em to your already overstocked shoe collection!):

Over-the-knee boots

This thigh-grazing style has been seen on fashionable celebs like Mischa Barton. The look is very fashion-forward and a bit hard to pull off, but when done right can look amazing. They look best with pants tucked in, not with short skirts or dresses with a short hem, which leave you lookin’ like a hooker.

If you are looking to splurge, check out the Joie boots on the left ($475), or, for the rest of us, the Newport News boot on the right is only $49. Bonus: they have a cool fold-over top so they can be worn two ways. Read More »

So you’ve got your fashion, make-up and nail trends all lined up for fall, now to top it all off, you need a perfectly coiffed ‘do, correct?

Here are the hairstyles you can expect to see all over the place this season. There’s something for everyone, with classic styles all the way up to uber-short or super funky cuts.

Pick what you think will best suit your face and personal style, and show off those gorgeous tresses.

The Bob

The Bob is keeping its steam and can be found on celebrities and fashionistas all over the place; Katie Holmes has defined this cut. There are several different versions of the bob, and it’s popular with or without bangs, so go with what makes you the most comfortable and rock out the hottest hairstyle of 2008. Read More »

Listening to the drum circle outside my window until 3 AM last night (something that is a nightly occurrence at hippie schools until it gets too cold to light a joint with one hand and play the same rhythm over and over again with the other), I couldn’t help but think back on my last couple of years of college. While I’ve done a lot of cool academic things, met a lot of cool academic (and non-academic people), and learned important life lessons (protip: writing an important paper at 5 AM is just asking for typos), there is one thing I’ve done during my 4 years at school that I now kind of wish I hadn’t: hooked up with random dudes.

Once upon a time, I dated one guy for a long time. But instead of living happily ever after with me, he woke up one day and decided he wanted to “go through an asshole phase” (his words, not mine). After dumping me and proceeding to flirt and hook up with a lot of mutual friends, my once-love promptly forgot all about his sappy promises of “forever” and pretended we had never met.

You could say I was heartbroken.

Because I had always been “a good girl,” I hadn’t really dated around before the Ex, and was pretty flabbergasted at the entire dating process. Plus, I was grieving like some kind of Victorian widow in black and wasn’t thinking straight. Additionally, I was going out and drinking a little more — even though I was completely conscious of the fact that drinking a little more was going to make me cry a little more come hangover time. All of those factors combined meant that I decided my only life choice was to do what all my friends were doing: hooking up with random dudes because I could.

It took me a while to get a lay of the land (haha. Get it?), but after a few stumbles into emotional territory — haven’t you heard? Emotions don’t belong in hook-ups — I totally got the hang of it: meet a guy, make it obvious you’re easy going, be physical early, and then convince him to sleep with you after 1 or 2 dates. Guys are very easily convinced, and playing up my free-spiritedness made it easy for me to seem totally okay with everything. Even though, in the back of my wound-up mind, whenever the guy was snoring too loudly or fumbling around like an idiot, I would fear that I was not made for random hook-ups, I kept at it. Read More »

Rarely while I am writing a story for CC do I find myself changing my mind about the subject halfway through. However, as I sit here with my can of sugar free Red Bull trying to muster up some energy for whatever kind of weird crowd will be at the bars during the summer on Thirsty Thursday, I had a sudden change of heart.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at music festivals this summer, like waaay more than anyone who isn’t obsessed with Jerry Garcia and The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test should, so I have run into a few very interesting characters, to say the least.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m not a whole fan of the hippie lifestyle. I’m extremely liberal and I love me some tye dye & hemp necklaces & moonshine just as much as the next chick. I just prefer to have clean underwear and hair that smells more like strawberries than Mary Jane. But the one thing I have never found appealing are the dreadlocked, banjo-playing, I-ate-way-too-many-mushrooms-once kind of crazies you run into at festivals – who basically live and breathe the whole scene.

I have a best friend; however, who is notorious for falling in lurrrve with every boy who writes her a sonnet and accompanies on his harmonica or enchants her with stories of touring with The String Cheese Incident. She’s a sucker, that’s for sure. I always wondered: How is it humanly possible that my friend who is gorgeous, intelligent & about to graduate with a B.A. going to seriously consider dating someone who is jobless, degree-less and (presumably) showerless? Read More »

Birthdays are days when you’re allowed to do whatever you want, eat whatever you want, and bask in amazement that you’ve actually gotten this old and still haven’t managed to find Ryan Gosling’s home address (what? Just me?). Anyhoo, being that I am now officially old enough to have a quarter-life crises, I’ve decided to share some things I’ve loved ever since I kicked my way out of the womb two months early (I’m impatient).

The Last Unicorn

Read More »

“Birds of the feather flock together” is a phrase my mother has repeated to me since I was a child. I used to hate her for this phrase. I used to accuse her of being judgmental and mean-spirited for judging my friends by the company that they kept. But now…well…now the story is a little bit different. As I have grown up on my own – outside of the house and outside of my mother’s phrases – I have begun to realize just how right she was.

More often than not these days, I find myself repeating that phrase. It’s not that I assume that a person is just like their negative friends, but I do wonder: why surround yourself with negativity? So many times, I hear people justifying their own friends. They’ll explain that their friend is ‘obnoxious’ or ‘self-centered’. Sure, we all have our negative qualities, but when a person’s negative qualities stand out against everything else…why would you want to be around that person?

Maybe I’m just biased because I have the best friends in the world. I throw parties often and I always pride myself in the fact that all of my circles of friends mingle together flawlessly each time. My friends always leave my parties raving about how awesome the people they met at my party are. I guess since I’m in NYC now, I can be picky. There are enough people in NYC to allow for me to have well-balanced, good-hearted friends across the board.

Read More »