On x FKA twigs Cloudmonster 3 Mule Is the First Mule On Has Ever Built

On has been building shoes for fifteen years without once making a mule. That ended on August 27, when the Swiss brand released the Cloudmonster 3 Mule as the centerpiece of its Fall and Winter 2026 collection with FKA twigs. It is a backless, strapped, terry-lined version of On’s max-cushion trainer, it costs $180, and the shoe is the smaller story. The bigger one is that On used a collaboration to introduce a silhouette it has never sold before.

The Cloudmonster is On’s max-cushion daily trainer, the shoe in the range built for long, slow miles rather than race day. The current Cloudmonster 3 sells for $190 on On’s own site, with the Cloudmonster 3 Hyper super trainer sitting above it at $280. All of them run on CloudTec, the hollow foam pods along the midsole that compress under load and are the most recognizable thing about an On shoe from thirty feet away. Since launching in 2010, On has built out road running, trail, training, hiking and a tennis line that produced THE ROGER Centre Court, and it has done all of it with laces or with its sprayed LightSpray upper. A backless shoe was never part of the plan. That is worth noting because recovery footwear has been a real category for the better part of a decade. HOKA, adidas and Nike all sell into it. On sold nothing there until three weeks ago.

The Mule keeps the Cloudmonster 3’s midsole geometry and cuts the heel off the upper. Triple-layer CloudTec sits under a Speedboard plate and Helion foam, the same stack On puts in its running shoes, which is a heavier and far more structured build than the flat EVA most recovery slides use. The upper is polyester, and where a running Cloudmonster carries a lace cage there is a single hook-and-loop strap across the midfoot. A terry lining runs the collar and the open heel, and the outsole is rubber rather than exposed foam. On lists the shoe at 290 grams with a 6mm drop, made in Vietnam. Two colorways launched together, Cacao and Espresso, and Loess and Hare, both named for what On calls natural pigments. Men’s and women’s versions carry separate style codes, and On has the pair flagged Limited Edition on its own product pages. Photographer Sharna Osborne shot the campaign in a nineties VHS register, and FKA twigs led the creative direction herself.

Backless is having a year. Saucony released the ProGrid V2 Mule at $140 on August 1, PUMA and Madhappy put a collapsible heel on the Suede, and adidas has been quietly selling a fur-lined Samba Mule. What separates the On is the price and the logic behind it. At $180 the Mule is ten dollars cheaper than the running shoe it is derived from, which is a strange place to land a shoe carrying less upper. On is not selling a slide here. It is selling a recovery product with a running shoe’s midsole and close to a running shoe’s price, and it is launching that under an artist’s name rather than under its own performance branding. That is a marketing decision as much as a product one, and it lets On test a new category without staking the house label on it. If the shoe moves, a cheaper in-house version is the obvious follow-up.

At $180 the Cloudmonster 3 Mule sits at the top of the backless market rather than in the middle of it. The Saucony ProGrid V2 Mule is $140. Inside On’s own range the Mule lands between the Cloudmonster Void at $170 and the Cloudmonster 1 at $180, and under the Cloudmonster 3 at $190, so On has priced a shoe with no heel counter within ten dollars of a full trainer. There is no meaningful resale record yet. The shoe has been out for less than two weeks, and On collaborations have historically traded close to retail. The Limited Edition flag on On’s product page is the only supply signal available, and On has not published a pair count.

The On x FKA twigs Fall and Winter 2026 collection launched August 27, 2026 at on.com and select retail partners. The Cloudmonster 3 Mule is $180 in Cacao and Espresso and in Loess and Hare, in men’s and women’s sizing, with style codes 3MG30343132 and 3MG30346025 for men and 3WG30323132 and 3WG30326025 for women. The rest of the collection covers the Club Collective Full Zip Hoodie, the Club Collective Pants and the Studio Bodysuit. Pairs are live at on.com now.

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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