Sf you immediately think of jumping in puddles at the mere mention of them, rain boots nevertheless have a serious pedigree. In England they are still called “wellies”, in reference to the first Duke of Wellington, a certain Arthur Wellesley. At the beginning of the XIXe century, this aristocrat asked his childhood bootmaker, the most famous in London, George Hoby, installed St James’s Street, to modify the Hessian boot, a popular model among German soldiers of the previous century.
The Duke ordered a pair that was more fitted and shortened below the knee, without decorative tassels but still with a low heel, practical for riding but also for walking off the battlefields. This model was baptized “Wellington” and the other clients of the bootmaker, British gentlemen, quickly adopted it. Leather at the time, they were manufactured, from the middle of the XIXe century, in vulcanized rubber – which consists of curing natural rubber with sulfur in order to make it stronger, more elastic and perfectly waterproof.
Kate Moss in the slush
True to their origins, and pragmatic given the local weather, the wellies remain a typically British style accessory. Elizabeth II would not have said the opposite, accustomed to the photogenic “combo”: rubber boots, flesh-colored tights, straight skirt below the knee, padded jacket and unbeatable scarf tied under the chin. Ideal boots for exploring the Scottish countryside. But also to protect herself from the Somerset mud: the image of Kate Moss in a (mini-) sequined mini-dress shod in Hunter boots – a specialist in the genre – treading on the slush, cup of beer in one hand, pack of cigarettes in the he other, at the Glastonbury Festival, entered the annals of fashion. From 2005, all the festival-goers began to adopt, like her, wellies bare legs under microshorts, no matter the color of the sky.
Like many other fashion accessories, wellington boots are today completely decorrelated from their initial function. Waterspouts or not, they wear in town like any other trendy shoe, in thigh-high or equestrian version, if possible branded with your favorite brand, in fashion combat boots with notched soles or much wiser in a regressive spirit that smacks of memories of hull fishing on the sand at low tide.
