Not everyone is upset that we had such a rain-lashed summer this year: Hunter Boot Ltd, the company behind the practical-yet-fashionable wellies worn by everyone from the Queen to Kate Moss, have been doing rather nicely. It has just announced its sales rose by 38 per cent to a value of £78m in 2011.
UK sales rose 53 per cent, while even in the USA not a country traditionally associated with gumboots sales were up by 11 per cent. Proof that savvy marketing by the brand in recent years, now as much must-wear festival gear for the fashion crowd as essential kit for people who actually live in the countryside, is paying dividends.
Indeed, recent spots of young women catching the Tube or marching down Oxford Street in their Hunters proves what country folk have always known: these wellies are too good to just save for an annual outing at Glastonbury.
