Her Winter My Summer: HUNTERS

Let me take this opportunity to be honest: fashion posts scare me. Christy is naturally stylish... she just has to shake her little, ring-adorned hands and chic drips off. She doesn't even have to try! It's probably the killer blonde bob and the unfailing confidence. I, on the other hand, exist somewhere in the (easy, safe) realm of practical-fashion-meets-minimalist-design. Luckily for me, minimalist is IN... and pretty much always is.

See, classic is easy-- you invest in well-structured pieces that evolve with the trend cycles and you're always set. Trench coats, fitted denim, black heels, white blouses, grey tees, Birkenstocks, Converse Sneakers, Hunters.

Yeah. Rain boots! In New Zealand, we call them gumboots. In the UK, they were popularized in the 19th century and went by the name Wellies or Wellingtons. Which happens to be the name of the city I lived in when I bought my first pair of Hunters.

Wellington, New Zealand is not just the home of Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings fame, and the capital of the nation, it's the windiest city in the world (sit down, Chicago). Welly is a city full of life, culture, to-die-for food, gorgeous scenery, and the best flat whites in both hemispheres, but it's also a miserably grey place for 90% of the year. Moving from the sunny beaches of forever-summer Florida, and settling for a year in the windswept city of Wellington was a shock to my vitamin-D-depleted system. If I was going to battle epic wind storms, perpetual rain, and 6.9 magnitude earthquakes, I was going to do it in functional style, dammit! Enter Hunters.

The day they arrived, I opened the door to a courier holding a long, slender box marked "Hunter," and shouted, "YAY!!!" Startled, the courier took a step back and laughed. "Wow, I guess this must be for you. What's got you so excited?!" he asked. "Gumboots!" I sang, hands outstretched to take the parcel. "Oh... well, to each their own!" See, in NZ, gumboots are a highly practical wardrobe staple usually reserved for tramping through the farm, or a rain-soaked garden. They are not high fashion, nor typically a source of parcel-delivery glee.

But I tell you what, I've now gotten more compliments on my Hunter boots, by both men and women, than ANY other item in my entire wardrobe. That's a big win for functional, classic design.

For Easter weekend, two of my closest girl friends and I went on a girls' trip to Lake Rotorua. We stayed at a family bach (that's a holiday home, for you non-Kiwi folk) right on the lakefront and these stunning poplars in the garden were my first glimpse of fall foliage for the year. In Auckland, the subtropical climate and harbor city landscape does little in support of autumn color change. Rotorua, on the other hand, 2.5 hours south of Auckland and one of the richest sources of geothermic activity globally, was full of budding autumn hues. The perfect place for a Hunters shoot.

Just look at those stunning views.

When I asked my friends if they'd be willing to help snap a couple photos of me wearing the boots, they really got into it! Both girls work in the New Zealand film industry so Eva jumped in the lake to capture the best photos of the jetty in afternoon light, and Jen declared herself the Props Assist and began collecting fallen leaves in her shirt.

The gems!

They made the photo shoot heaps of fun and the photos are just gorgeous.