Are Wellies Destined For the field or the Frow?

The Wellington boot comes with a rich history that is defined by it’s durability and has been embraced on the feet of some of the most famous Kates in Britain, from Kate Moss to Kate Middleton. You can find them flocking on the sides of muddy football pitches, and being taken for brisk walks in torrential rain, coming back entrenched in mud, usually followed by an excited labrador joyously wagging their tails. They are synonymous with British culture, recognised as the go-to footware for Glastonbury goers (how can we forget those iconic snaps of Kate Moss), with hunters and a Barbour jacket being the unofficial countryside chic. They represent the lushy, rolling green British countryside, burning pub fires, the smell of wet dogs, and walks to school on wet mornings. They are the one type of shoe that is guaranteed to help protect your feet no matter the circumstances, the shoe equivalent guarantee of going to have a cup of tea with gran when you are feeling glum.

Due to being so synonymous with the great outside, when wellies are spotted in the city, they are often met with distaste due to triggering a dissonance that is due to their own strengths as a sturdy outside shoe. Why would you need to wear a pair of wellies when walking in a metropolitan setting when the only greenery you may come across is the vibrant green glint of a decapitated, abandoned Lime bike that has seen better days? What happened to breaking the norms and crashing onto the tube and into the office in our rubber soled friend and marching (or squelching) around the office with pride that you are bringing this iconic country shoe into a work setting? Is this really a fashion mix up, or a rejuvenated take on the winter boot. Designers have been embracing wellies. Chanel do a black version, as do Burberry in their iconic print. Is this support from the designer set a signal that the tides are turning towards embracing wellies in the everyday setting?

I put this to the test when I I decided to buy a gorgeous vinatge pair I stumbled across in a charity shop a few days ago. They were faintly embossed with the GB flag, screaming Brit Pop, Oasis, Gerri Halliwell in that iconic dress. They still even had some smatters of mud on them from where their owner couldn’t be asked to polish off before popping them into the charity pile, and because of this, I wanted them even more. This is the thing with wellies, they are unpolished, imperfect, and in a fashion landscape that is so obsessed with minimalism, they are a breath of fresh, country air.  Wellies possess a bold, unashamed presence as a shoe. They don’t claim to be as delicate as a kitten heel, yet their edge as a shoe comes in their unabashed hankering presence on the feet of country ilk, and now it seems, the fashion set.

So I decided to try it out. I did the welly test in London.

For the first 20 minutes I felt like I was channeling the inner effortlessly boho countryside chic within me, feeling as if people were sneaking undercover looks and thinking ‘you know what, why have I never thought about wearing wellies in London before?’. I felt as if I was kicking off a movement, the fashion equivalent of Helen of Troy, yet not the woman who launched a thousand ships, but a thousand rubber soles. No one would ever choose to wear a simple boot again after I was out there reminding them of the fact the welly existed.

Eventually, however, I began to feel the ‘welly effect’. “Crikey, that’s a pair of shoes!” exclaimed a bemused cappuccino drinker as I walked into a local café. In that moment, I felt silly, almost clownish, but most of all, misunderstood. Other people gave looks of confused disdain, in their eyes I could see not quite the same reflection I had of the shoe in my eyes. The city simply wasn’t doing these shoes justice. I realised that, no matter how hard I tried, the wellies’ deeply rooted association with muddy fields and rain-soaked countryside would prevent them from ever being fully accepted in an urban setting. They were too unconventional, too unapologetically rural, too burdened by the very identity that made them so brilliant in the first place.

My wellies still sit pride of place as the shoe personality hire by my more conventional Puma speedcat ballets. I know that the time has not come yet for the welly to fully have their moment. For now it may be banished to the plains of the countryside, yet one day the city will call her back, and when she does, I will be ready.