I suppose rubber boots are not considered necessary for the daily life by most Chinese people. When Hunter became a fashion icon, many Chinese people still thought rubber boots were out of date, even though China produces most rubber boots sold all over the world...

       As a fan of rubber boots, I was quite lucky to spend several years in the homeland of Aigle and Le Chameau. When I came back to China with my French Boots, I was a little worried: I was not sure if there are only old people wearing rubber boots during the rainy days, just like 5 or 10 years ago. However, I was surprised to find that China is also touched by this "rubber boots fashion trend”. Here below are just my thoughts about this trend, based on my observations and exchanges with other fans of rubber boots. Maybe some information is not totally correct.

       It firstly concerns the rubber factories. They found colorful rubber boots may become a commercial opportunity in western countries. So during last 10 or 15 years, more and more rubber factories started to produce rubber boots just for exportation. Meanwhile, it becomes more and more difficult to find the black rubber boots in the shops or supermarkets. On one hand, people think the rubber boots are not necessary as many other shoes are also waterproof and they are enough for the use in the city. On the other hand, it’s getting difficult to buy high-quality rubber boots. As the price of rubber goes up, many Chinese factories produces low-quality PVC boots for domestic market (some little factories even use unknown toxic materials, so the boots have a strong unpleasant smell ). I think this makes more people dislike the rubber boots: they are too hot to wear (unfortunately, the rainy season in many Chinese regions is the hottest summer), and they smell (in fact, many people can’t tell the difference of rubber and PVC, and they think all rainboots are made of rubber, which has a strong smell).

       The elder generation (my parents, for example) thinks rubber boots are out of date ; the younger generation knows little about the rubber boots (many young people have never worn them)

        Thanks to Internet, some young people start to know in fact that the western young people wear rubber boots to attend the music festival, the actors and actresses of Gossip Girls are truly sexy in rubber boots, the British Royal families wear also those “just-for-farmer” rubber boots, etc. Some young people (especially girls) get to know that rubber boots could be colorful and very good-looking. At the same period, the website Taobao.com becomes very popular among the Chinese people. (Basically, it’s a website like eBay, but with the World Factory and comparably cheaper and faster delivery service, more and more Chinese people love shopping on that site.)

       Before that, the rubber factories I mentioned at the beginning sold their products to foreign buyers on Alibaba, a B2B platform. As Taobao becomes very popular, some factories also start to sell the exported rubber boots in China. Of course, these are not the perfect products : sometimes they have a little default and can’t be exported. So the price is also acceptable for many Chinese people, but still more expensive than most traditional black rubber boots.

       As a result, quite often you can see some girls in rubber boots during the rainy days. Apparently, most of their boots are some unknown brands from Taobao (many Japanese brands, and also boots of Tretorn and Viking). It seems that the younger generation accepts rubber boots more easily than the elder generation who wore black rubber boots quite often in the old days. A quite interesting fact...

       The first time when I wore my Le Chameau boots to hang out with some friends, I was a little worried: will it be too odd? But in fact, my friends thought my rubber boots were good-looking, and they knew some stars wear Hunter. It’s just "the price is too high for a pair of shoes that you can’t wear everyday” (one of my friends said that). On the contrary, my parents think it’s strange to wear them, at least not necessary to wear rubber boots higher than 40cm in the city…