Rosamosario Suede Mules, $1140 via Net-a-Porter

If you followed along with our footwear coverage of the various Spring 2012 fashion weeks, you probably noticed something a tad troubling – the fashion industry, in what I can only call not one of its finer moments, has decided to try and make mules happen again. Sadly, I don’t mean the animal, although I’d rather have an actual mule around the house (good for carrying cases of Diet Coke home from the grocery store!) than wear a pair of mule shoes.

For the uninitiated (or just those who are too young to remember these shoes being popular previously), the Rosamosario Suede Mules are a good example of the New Mule’s standard features, in addition to the traditional backlessness – high heel, no support, little in the way of material to keep you from breaking an ankle. Some of them also feature enormous platforms, like this one, to make you look like a stripper while you’re in the process of breaking said ankle.

Don’t get me wrong, these shoes do have some pleasant retroness about them, and the leopard-print sole in particular plays up the vintage-vixen feel. The look simply strikes me as too overtly kitschy to really be high-end, though, and high-heeled mules as a hole often feel like they need to be adorned with marabou and left for the bedroom or accented with lucite and left for the pole. I’ll skip this pair. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $1140.