Frosh full of Derby glamour

College freshman Latha Arla can rest easy -- she's a "Do." Arla, a native of Louisville, Ky., appeared in a recent issue of Glamour magazine as an example of a cool fashion statement. Had she been a "Don't" -- a definite no-no in the fashion world -- she would have been branded with eternal embarrassment and a black bar over her eyes. Arla said the photograph was taken as she and her high school friend were entering the gates at last year's Kentucky Derby, to which they had box seats. Arla was wearing a short, mainly green multicolored dress -- nothing special, she said. "I didn't buy a special dress or anything," Arla said. "I just threw on something and they just happened to choose it." Arla's Residential Advisor, College junior Christiana Fitzpatrick, was the first one to see the picture. "I was just looking through the magazine and I saw it and I thought it looked like her," Fitzpatrick said last night. "I ran next door and said, 'Doesn't this look like Latha?' and they said it was her." Arla, who was in class at the time, found out from her friends a couple of hours later. "One of my friends told me, 'You're in Glamour magazine,' " Arla said. "I said, 'No way' -- I didn't believe it. Until this past December, I had no idea that the picture was even taken." Fitzpatrick said the "DOs & DON'Ts" section of Glamour is a regular feature. Each month, she said, the magazine prints four or five pictures of "fashion mistakes" and one picture of a "good person." Arla said the people who appeared opposite her in the "Don't" section -- whom she did not know -- were sitting in the infield section at the Derby, where there is no dress code. According to Arla, the "Don'ts" were wearing "cut off shorts [and] tanks -- real scruffy looking." Most people who sit in box seats dress nicely, she added. Arla's roommate, Wharton freshman Karissa Kruse, said Arla was nervous before she saw the picture. "She was kind of flipping out because she wasn't sure what she looked like," Kruse said. "Everyone said that they had thought she was a 'Do' but they weren't sure." Arla explained that after she heard about her magazine appearance she had to wait two hours to see the picture, because her RA was not home and WaWa didn't have any copies yet. Though Arla will blush at being called a celebrity, others have already bestowed the title on her. She recently appeared in her hometown newspaper, The Courier-Journal, thanks to her proud father who told a friend at the paper. "My dad tells everyone he knows," Arla said. "He took [the magazine] to his office and gave out copies to everyone." And all of her friends already knew about her fame when she returned home for winter break, she said. Arla attributes her stardom solely to luck. "We were at the right place at the right time," she said. "There were hundreds of people walking in the place at the same time -- we just got really lucky."