Despite bitter experience, I’m stubbornly standing by mules
hen I first saw those Malone Souliers vertiginous buttoned mules I thought: “Come off it. Nobody’s going to fall for that again.” This was about three years ago, before Gucci’s furry ones, before Celine’s high fronted ones, before Balenciaga’s technically intriguing knife heeled ones, before even Mansur Gavriel joined in with the “affordable designer sweet spot” mule in sweetie colours.
Fall is the operative word. Cue one of those shimmery time travel effects. Imagine Thames. Boat. Newspaper editor’s summer party. Me in my on-trend Miu-mules (‘twas the summer of 2000 or thereabouts). Boat approaches. Does what boats do. Fashion editor attempts her most dignified boarding face. Mule does what mules do and plops into manky Thames. Of course it does. Mules have been plopping since way before Fragonard’s delightfully suggestive portrait of The Swing. My mule’s descent did not look delightfully suggestive, however. It looked unfortunate and smelly. And the entire boat was on deck, watching.
The Miu-miu was never retrieved. Worse still, the managing editor informed me I couldn’t claim it on expenses (those were the days when it was still worth trying). I never looked at a mule again. I told myself they made most women’s heels look hideous. Carine Roitfeld agreed. “Mules, I’m sure, I will never wear,” she told The New York Times in 2011. “I hate mules. I hate the noise when someone walks with mules. Clomp, clomp, clomp. I think it’s very not chic.”
For the best part of two decades, we – the mule and I – never troubled one another again. But then, as is the way with an “It” shoe, mules became the tool with which every stylist made a so-so outfit look instantly modern. It doesn’t matter what you throw at it: classic midi, boring trousers, dodgy culottes, industrial jumpsuits… the mule makes it all look deliberate, turning even the shakiest outfit into a statement.
It is everywhere and in all incarnations from Prada’s velvet peekaboos (very Marilyn, who was most partial to a mule) and Mulberry’s clompy Pilgrim mules to Topshop, Zara and co. The Balenciaga Knife mule continues to sell out. Jimmy Choo, which was snapped up for £896million this week by Michael Kors, has at least six variations.
WTopshop has 35, with more on the way for autumn, and has seen a 40 per cent rise in sales, year on year. Mules are big business. Other labels such as No. 21 keep returning to popular designs and reissuing them in seasonal shades. The game changer, according to Cassie Smart, buying manager for footwear on matchesfashion.com, “is the shift to a kitten heel height [as opposed to higher] which makes it more compelling to wear in the day.” Of course there are mules and mules. The further the vamp comes up the foot, the more likely it is to stay on. A low cut one can work it if it’s cleverly cut. Rupert Sanderson, who has been doing a nice trade in mules since 2015 is acutely aware of comfort, fit and what he calls “the falling off factor. I’ll only work with materials and techniques that avoid all that.”
Caveat alert: the mule will never be the most functional shoe. That’s not its raison d’être. Femininity and poise are both handy traits when denim, androgynous tailoring, wide, cropped trousers and tweedy, houndstooth-y fabrics are set to be as dominant as they are this coming winter. It’s worth thinking about lengths too, which are still grazing shins and even lower – the mule is a dainty, seductive counterpoint to what could look frumpy. If you’re feeling cankle-ous, stand on a step and raise, then drop, then raise your heels repeatedly
– it’s a wickedly effective ankle and calf toner. If that’s too energetic, sit yourself down and rotate your ankles as many times as you can before they feel they’re going to drop off. And yes, you can wear mules with tights, particularly textured ones.
The most beautiful mules, obviously, are Manolo Blahnik’s magnificently buckled Maysale, which like his jewelled silk Hangisi, have become a stealth (by which I refer to their gradual takeover, not their price) trophy among style influencers and editors. The proportions are peerless: the oversized buckle, which stops it looking too “lady”, and the contrasting delicate heel (which comes in two heights, 70mm and 50mm). And then there are the colours – currently 10 – and fabrications, from leather to Harris Tweed. Manolo, unlike Carine Roitfeld, loves a mule. “I have a special affection for the Maysale,” he tells me, “it brings back nostalgic memories from when I first designed it for Isaac Mizrahi in the Nineties. There’s something very effortless about it. Easy to put on but even easier to throw off. It’s frivolously feminine and still so popular 25 year later.”
So mythic is the Maysale that there’s a story – which no one can corroborate, not even, it seems Manolo – that Marge Simpson wore a pair in one episode. No one would be surprised. “When you walk in mules,” he told W magazine, “you walk a bit differently. It’s very sexy; you have to get your balance. Egyptian queens would be walking around in these kind of mules of gold and ivory – can you imagine? Madame de Pompadour in her mules, walking around Versailles, click click click… Can you think of anything more exquisite?”