The Hunter Wellington

How An English Duke And The Invention Of Vulcanized Rubber Gave Us The Ideal Boot For April Showers.

- Robert Klara

When foreign heads of state visit the White House, they tend to bring the sort of dull, diplomatic gifts destined for museum storage rooms, like tea sets and oil paintings. But a notable exception took place in July 2010, when David Cameron called on the Obamas with something the first family could really use. Newspaper reports said Samantha Cameron had gone shopping in Notting Hill and picked up the items herself: a pink pair for Malia and purple for Sasha.

The British Prime Minister had brought the kids some Hunter boots.

At $150 a pair—cheap by diplomatic standards— the expenditure likely pleased the Exchequer, and it no doubt pleased the public, too. After all, among all the U.K. exports cherished by us Yanks—Burberry raincoats, Jaguars, Downton Abbey and so on—not one is as stylish yet simultaneously utilitarian as a pair of Hunter boots.