Working last month at the Royal Highland Show, the announcement of the collapse of Hunter, best-known for its wellies, into administration was hot news. Hunter, the Edinburgh-based company established in 1856 as the North British Rubber Company, was held up the world over as a bastion of Britishness and a byword for quality. Following the news, Anna Murphy, fashion director at The Times, said that she had spent the earnings from her first job on a pair: “They equated to permanence, to being in and of the land, and not just any old land but this particular one.”
Hunter attributed its debts of over £110m to pandemic-related supply chain problems, Brexit and inflation, as well as a plummet in demand due to unseasonably warm weather in its largest market,
