Editor's note: Delving into the archives of pop culture history, “Do You Remember When?” is a new series that offers a nostalgic look at the celebrity outfits that defined their eras.
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Remember when Kate Moss wore wellies (aka rain boots for those outside the UK) to Glastonbury?
As the historic festival returns once again to Worthy Farm, we look back at one of its most memorable fashion moments. After all, no British summer would be complete without copious amounts of mud.
And no one has conquered it like Moss.
Some 19 years ago, Britain's best-known supermodel broke fashion's proverbial fourth wall and joined mortals in their muddy misery. Sure, I'd probably spent the weekend glamping in the festival's VIP area. But a dirty pitch is England's great equaller, and during those brief, well-photographed walks around the Glastonbury grounds, cigarette in hand, she was just like us.
Until his choice of practical footwear transformed festival fashion and helped save a traditional bootmaker from the brink of obsolescence.
It was the summer of 2005 and Moss was near the peak of her powers. Media interest in her whereabouts at the festival was amplified by a fixation with her then-budding flirtation with Pete Doherty. But while The Libertines frontman certainly seemed more comfortable in the conditions, it was Moss who stole the show.
Pairing a pair of classic black Hunter rain boots with a vest, shorts and a studded belt (and later a sparkly tunic), the model was a picture of understated glamour. Below the knee, her look was interchangeable with that of a Somerset pig farmer. But above that, she could easily have walked out of a Chelsea mansion and into a well-placed paparazzi ambush.
The images quickly went viral (or as viral as they could go in the pre-social media era). The bastion of so-called “heroin chic” of the mid-90s had become the face of its slightly older, more respectable cousin: mid-2000s festival chic.
In the process, wellies earned a place in the popular imagination. No longer the exclusive preserve of agriculture, they were a status symbol best paired with fedoras, ties, and other questionable 2000s accessories. Once practical, these boots had morphed into a bourgeois badge of honor, signaling that the wearer was willing to “live it up” and still look fabulous (the drug-addicted rock star boyfriend was still an optional part of the look).
Suddenly, festival clothes became a category of their own, something much bigger than an amalgamation of clothes you didn't mind ruining. But an even deeper transformation was also underway: that of the then-struggling Hunter Boot Limited.
The Scottish brand's true heyday may have been during the World Wars, when it produced vast quantities of waterproof boots for the front. But never before in the company's 149-year history had its practical footwear been so sought after. While the power of the Moss effect should not be overstated (his endorsement failed to save the bootmaker from entering receivership in 2006), it did help to kick-start a remarkable turnaround in the company's fortunes.
In 2007, the company was under new ownership and reporting an 85% increase in year-over-year sales. Since then, it has become a real festival, producing rainwear, outerwear and boots in all kinds of colors and styles.
Once prized for keeping gangrene at bay in the trenches, Hunter has completed the ultimate 21st-century transformation to become the rainy-day boot du jour for celebrities including Rita Ora, Rihanna, Cara Delevingne and Alexa Chung.
And to think, all Kate wanted was a comfortable, dry pair of feet.
