Hunter marks 170th anniversary with a Kate Moss wellington campaign

Hunter has marked its 170th anniversary with a fall 2026 campaign fronted by Kate Moss, reviving a relationship with the model that began more than two decades ago. Moss appears in reimagined versions of the brand's Original Tall Wellington Boot, the style she wore to Glastonbury Festival in June 2005.

That Glastonbury appearance is credited with turning the black wellington into a hallmark of festival fashion, a look that has stuck to Moss and to Hunter ever since. Hunter was founded in 1856, and the Original Tall has sat at the center of its output for nearly two centuries.

Moss said she reached for the boots on impulse rather than through any partnership: leaving the house for the festival in "way too short shorts and a waistcoat," she heard the fields were already knee high in mud and went to her own closet for her black, tighter-fitting, waterproof Hunter wellies. "Bingo!" she said.

"I've been a loyal fan of Hunter for years, ever since the festival where I wore them," Moss said in a statement announcing the new campaign, framing the reunion as a continuation of a connection Hunter says it never engineered as a formal deal at the time.

What the campaign is called

The global fall 2026 campaign is titled Iconic by Nature, and it is built around the landscape and countryside culture that shaped Hunter from its founding. The imagery pairs the brand's utilitarian heritage with Moss's own style, framed as a fusion of past and present.

Stefani Fleurant, executive vice president of marketing, sport and lifestyle at Authentic Brands Group, which owns Hunter, said the brand has never had to choose between heritage and cultural relevance. "The two have always been connected," she said, adding that Moss embodies that link.

"Kate embodies that in a way few people can," Fleurant said. "Her relationship with Hunter began organically more than two decades ago and became part of the brand's story. Bringing her into our 170th anniversary is both a celebration of that history and a statement about where Hunter is going next."

What is in the fall 2026 collection

The anniversary extends into a full fall 2026 collection organized around three pillars: Heritage, Contemporary and Innovation, mirrored respectively in the Originals, Downpour and Elements lines. The range moves beyond the traditional rubber wellington into technical outerwear and sportswear.

In Europe, the lineup is anchored by the 170th Anniversary Original Tall Wellington Boot in Hunter Green, described as a faithful recreation of the first Original Tall down to its signature color. The commemorative edition adds gold hardware and a heritage badge reading "since 1856."

The European range also includes the Downpour Tall Boot in Black and the Elements Neoprene Chelsea Boot in black, alongside three jacket options. For the United States and Canada, the Original Tall Wellington Boot appears in Black Croco rather than the European green.

The North American lineup adds the Giania in Chocolate Brown Waterproof Suede Tall Boot and the Maribel Puffy Snow Bootie in brown, extending the brand's design codes into new materials and silhouettes beyond the rubber boot it is best known for.

Where the collection is sold

Hunter says the fall 2026 collection can be shopped now at hunterboots.co.uk and hunterboots.com, as well as through Nordstrom and Anthropologie in the United States. No pricing was given for the anniversary pieces or the wider collection.

We have covered the wellington boot's staying power as part of our coverage of style, tracking how a functional, waterproof design became a wardrobe fixture well beyond muddy fields.

In our roundups of the best boots for men and women, we have repeatedly flagged waterproofing and all-weather durability as the features that separate a lasting boot from a seasonal one, the same qualities Hunter is now stamping with a gold anniversary badge.

Hunter's history with celebrity festivalgoers is not incidental to how the brand is positioned today. Moss's original choice of the boots came from her own wardrobe rather than a sponsorship, which is part of why Authentic Brands Group is treating the 2005 moment as foundational rather than incidental to this campaign.

The anniversary campaign gives Authentic Brands Group a case study in stretching a single utilitarian product, the Original Tall Wellington, across 170 years, two continents' worth of colorways and a celebrity association it did not originally engineer but has now formalized into its biggest fall push.