Montreal girls night out, by girls and only for girls: partying, fun and sexuality

by Naomi Lee

Stilettos, every good man's fetish

It's no secret that this past week has been hell on earth. If I had nuts, they would of definitely have frozen over into two little ice cubes (ed's note: due to extreme laziness, we are obviously publishing this article very late; it doesn't matter cause it is still damn good). I was making my way across the tundra (aka Prince Arthur) just the other night; with only essentials exposed like my eyes, I still thought I was gonna die. As I passed the suicide-long queue for Cafe Campus, (it was a Tuesday, natch), I noticed a pair of young succulent nebbishes huddling together for warmth wearing the most ridiculously ill-equipped shoes for the minus holy freakin' coldness we were having. I thought to myself "Idiots!" But my snobbish fashion critique was cut short when I had suddenly remember that I myself wore equally ill equipped open toed strappy sandals when I was 18. Back during my heyday, I vacationed to Quebec City one week with my grad class. It was the poor man's version of Spring Break, Canadian styles. The beer was cheap, the hotels debaucherous and skanks aplenty. What was evident (other than our fake IDs) was our total disregard for classy attire. We didn't care. We were miles from home and finally allowed to dress like hose bags without repercussions or condescension from our parents. And when I say we dressed like hose bags, what we really thought was,we were dressing real 'sexy-like'. We had adored ourselves with skin tight tank tops and even tighter jeans. But it wasn't the "if it's not tight it's not right" mentality that gave us barely legalers away. No way Jose, it was our shoes.

'Pish posh', you might say, but if you observe closely, any young girl under 19 is going to wear awkward shoes. And when I say awkward, what I mean is, when you are on the cusp of your new found "sluttiness" at 16 or 17, you're too busy affixing your face with sparkly make up and squeezing into corset-like tops to notice a thing like shoes. Who had time to worry about shoes?? If one were to stop to consider which shoes would be best for accompanying said diaphragm-constricting outfit, we'd probably just pat ourselves on the back for wearing our cross trainers. Because after a few under aged beers, we didn't want to be preoccupied with something like balance or walkability (I make up words, okay?). Sneakers were versatile because you could mess about and not worry too much about tipping over. Plus we were always running from something or dancing badly whilst making out with some random on the dance floor. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? Think hard. Think about freshmen year. What were you wearing when you went to your first club in Montreal? One tight tank top, check. A pair of flared jeans, check. Cross trainers? Check. But it's not like you had a choice. You owned maybe 3 pairs of sneakers and a pair of strappy sandals. And you only reserved the strappy sandals for special occasions. You weren't the only one who did this.

But gradually, you moved on to bigger shoes. Not necessarily better, but definitely bigger. I know most of you would rather forget the days where you wore black chunky heels but admit it, you had some. And not only did you have some, they were quite good to you.

Seeing black chunky heels now would make me wanna blow chunks. But again, I'm slapped back to reality knowing that I too owned a pair myself. They gave you the height you never had before, and were surprisingly sturdy. And in my head (yours too probably) I thought since I had that little bit of heel, I felt slightly more grown up, more mature. God I was retarded. I was still wearing the same outfit at then 19 that I did at 17. Tight tank top with tighter jeans, just now with chunky black shoes.

Barf.

But I see it all around me now. Like those girls in that line for Cafe Campus. They were just hovering around 18. They were armed with their push up bras and sneakers. Some changed it up and had on strappy sandals. I guess they considered Tuesday nights at Campus as a special occasion. I'd say.

When you're slightly older, jaded and aren't acting as big of a hose bag like you use to, you evolve once again and graduate onto the next level of women's shoes: the stiletto.

Stilettos are the be all and end all of women shoes (and some curious men). They not only make your legs look sexy as hell even if normally they hang like wooden posts, (you know, the no ankle look), they give you height if you're a hobbit and they can hurt people. Countless men and women are scared shitless of that skinny little heel. It yields power and fear; two attributes vital for your early 20's. Stilettos mean you mean business. And when you're out wearing a pair, cocktail in hand (we've moved on from the cheap draft now), you are conveying to others that you aren't just any ordinary dime-a-dozen hose bag. No, no, you're a hose bag that can walk in HEELS!

Let's pause for a self congratulatory pat on the back.

Apparently in modern times, podiatrists are saying that wearing any heely type thing on your pieds for more than 4 days out of the week can cause insufferable damage to the body. I can believe it! Can't you feel it in your ankles when they collapse from the inside out after dancing for like 4 hours??

So when you start weaning yourself off of this stiletto habit, (because of health reasons) you begin to experiment with other types of shoes.

Flip-flops at the clubs? Platforms while shopping? Slip-ons at the grocery store? I think at certain age, our hearts just aren't in it anymore. So we become bums and we put any old things on our feet. But this is where the shoes cycle ends and begins anew. We go back to our sneakers seeking a fresh start. We're a little older and a little wiser. We might wear sneakers out now, but we aren't hose bags anymore.

Right?

Don't let your friends steal the entire NYE spotlight from you.