Get Muled!!

CLICK-CLACK. Click-clack. Hear that? It’s the sound of the mule, possibly the only shoe with its own audio signature, and it’s making a big noise this spring.

Mules have been trending for a few seasons, but they’ve reached critical mass in the last few months, with everyone from Madewell to Manolo Blahnik, who’s done more than any other designer to keep this style alive, offering a take. In fact, not since the early 1990s, when the supermodel Linda Evangelista owned Mr. Blahnik’s Maysale mule in most colors, has this gussied-up slipper had such cultural currency. And in the everything-old-is-new-again way of contemporary fashion, the Maysale is riding high, showing up on influencers like Karlie Kloss, who wasn’t even born when it made its 1991 debut on Isaac Mizrahi’s runway. The mule fulfills our desire to feel like we’re in our pajamas.

Gucci Mule

The mule was a staple on the Spring/Summer 2016 catwalk; a controversial style loved by some, bemoaned by others. The origins of the word mule lie in Ancient Rome, where it was mulleus calceus (a red or purple shoe worn by the three highest magistrates), but the contemporary appropriation refers to a shoe that is backless and usually closed-toed.

It’s a very sexy shoe. The way you walk in it is insecure but not—very tempestuous,” wrote Mr. Blahnik in an email, explaining in his idiosyncratic way why he’s so enamored of this style.

What makes the mule so precarious, of course, is that it has no back quarters—in layman’s terms, it has an open heel. An open-toed mule is not a mule but a slide, but we’ll let that slide; many designers, in their current embrace of all shoes backless, have lumped the two together. They’ve also adapted pretty much every other footwear style to mule specifications, lopping the backs off sneakers and loafers to make them even easier to wear. And therein lies the reason for the mule’s current modishness.

XOXO - ClassiLadyStyle