Ten o’clock in the morning on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, likely had little to no significance for the majority of students on campus.

For most, they awoke with mild anguish at the fact that school was to resume after two glorious snow days, and proceeded to slump their way to class sporting down coats and looks of visible distaste for the single digit temperatures.

But for fashion gals and fellas countrywide, this date was almost as important as the reemergence of pleather clothing during the early 2000s, because Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014, marked the official start of New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Cue the giddy smiles, mental inability to close Twitter for more than five minutes and outfits that scream, “Duh, I’m wearing a living animal on my head. It’s called fashion. Look it up.”

I myself was no exception to this excitement. I may or may not have woken up early to read every article posted in the fashion section of The New York Times, and there’s a possibility I based my entire week’s schedule off of the live streaming of my favorite designers’ shows.

(I absolutely did both of these things.)

Fashion week is for me what spring break is for most others my age: it gives me that warm, elated feeling inside, brings out my most daring self and tends to coax me into making poor life choices.

Nonetheless, I woke up Thursday morning feeling like a pyromaniac at a fireworks stand, and I was ready to light this week up. I made sure my phone was fully charged, my outfit was looking on point and my step was thoroughly pepped.

As I sat in my economics class fully engaged in the glory that is the production possibility curve (translated: obsessively refreshing my Twitter feed checking for designer updates), I couldn’t help but envy all the people who got to experience the shows firsthand.

They got to sit within inches of haute couture and had the hope of meeting a renowned designer face-to-face. I, on the other hand, was sitting amongst a sea of North Face jackets and was stuck answering supply shift questions about “Kim’s Apple Stand.”

These people were living my dream, and Kim would still be a shmuck for not picking enough apples to properly supply her stand regardless of what I did to help. The entire situation made me feel downtrodden at best.

As I was leaving class, my head drooping with self-pity and my step significantly un-pepped, I spotted a girl on the opposite side of the sidewalk wearing a flouncy skirt, trendy boots and a deep navy peacoat, her outfit looking nothing short of a feature in a Harper’s Bazaar spread. She strutted her way towards me, smiling at absolutely nothing, emanating the perfect mix of confidence and elegance.

And then it hit me. Here, in the state of Missouri, on a snowy, miserable day, no Marchesa or Prabal Gurung in sight, was the most dominant symbol of fashion I’d seen all day in the simple form of a college student.

Here’s what I had forgotten while being mixed up in the hype of a thing I wasn’t even actually a part of: Fashion is not about memorizing how to pronounce designer names, whose name you’re wearing or how well received is the latest trend you’re wearing.

Fashion is about wearing your clothes in a way no one else has. It’s about carrying yourself with confidence and realizing that, yes, you do look totally vogue today, and yes, you are absolutely allowed to walk like you know it.

Use what you have to work with, but more importantly, _work_ what you have to work with. One of the outfits I feel best in is comprised of a $6 peplum top and a pair of pants I got on mega sale. True fashion isn’t about the price tag or the name — it’s about how you make something your own and then execute that you-ness with valor.

In CoMo, sidewalks are our runways, Broadway is our Fifth Avenue and we’re our own stylists. That, my friends, is something Fashion Week simply cannot hold a candle to.