Mule, a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 word, is a style of shoe

Shoe

A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...

 that is backless and often closed-toed. Mules can be any heel

Heel

In human anatomy, the heel is the prominence at the posterior end of the foot. It is based on the projection of one bone, the calcaneus or heel bone, behind the articulation of the bones of the lower leg.- Human anatomy :...

 height - from flat to high. The style is predominantly (but not exclusively) worn by women.

The term derives from the Ancient Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 mulleus calceus a red or purple shoe worn by the three highest magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

s, although there is little indication of any structural resemblance.

History

High-heeled mules were a popular indoor shoe style of the 18th century, influenced by the patten

Patten (shoe)

Pattens are protective overshoes worn in Europe from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century. Pattens were worn outdoors over a normal shoe, held in place by leather or cloth bands, with a wooden or later wood and metal sole...

, a backless overshoe of the 16th century. By the early twentieth century, mules were often associated with prostitutes.

In the early 1950s, Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

 popularized the shoe and helped to break its poor reputation.

Mules experienced some popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s, and were seen in 1970s almost exclusively in the form of open-back Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n clogs

Clog (shoe)

A clog is a type of footwear made in part or completely from wood.The Oxford English Dictionary defines a clog as a "thick piece of wood", and later as a "wooden soled overshoe" and a "shoe with a thick wooden sole"....

, but then re-emerged in the early 1990s, especially in its open-toed form (the "slide

Slide (footwear)

Slide is a common term that refers to a shoe that is backless and open-toed, essentially an open-toed mule. Generally, all slides are a type of sandal. Thongs and flip flops are normally classified separately. Slides can be high-heeled, flat-heeled or somewhere in between, and may cover nearly...

"), and began to dominate the shoe market for women.