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Footwear brand Ugg throws a dinner party to celebrate new global brand ambassador Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

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While guests were wearing slides and stilettos at an intimate, late-summer sit-down dinner at Soho House’s new Little Beach House in Malibu, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the 29-year-old supermodel/actress/burgeoning fashion standout and fiancée of action film star Jason Statham, did not look out of place while shod in a pair of knee-high, wintry, black suede boots despite the fact that it was a warm 75 degrees and the sky blue over Malibu.

Footwear brand Ugg had the Sept. 8 dinner to celebrate Huntington-Whiteley’s recent appointment as global brand ambassador for the shearling-lined footwear popularized by Oprah Winfrey and others.

Ugg, which is owned by Goleta-based Deckers Brands, was created in 1978 by Australian surfer-transplant to Southern California Brian Smith and his business partner, Doug Jensen. Love them or hate them, the brand’s boots became iconic and a celebrity favorite, slipped on by Sienna Miller, Kate Hudson and Kate Moss.

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“[Those women] were my style icons,” said Huntington-Whiteley, who was 16 when the Ugg brand was rising to footwear prominence. “I just knew I had to have a pair.”

Ugg’s association with Huntington-Whiteley — she’s also a Victoria’s Secret model, the creator of a lingerie and makeup collection available through British retail giant Marks & Spencer and the face of Paige Denim — is especially fortuitous given that she has harbored an enduring and genuine fondness for the brand since she got that first pair 13 years ago.

“There’s always some Uggs in the back of my car for a spontaneous road trip,” she said. “I put my feet into a pair first thing in the morning. I have a travel pair, a pair in London, some at my parents’ house. I’m never without them.”

She saved her money for her first pair of Uggs, counted the days until the boots arrived and then wore them constantly while out and about near her family home in Devon, England, and on regular weekend jaunts around the English countryside. (The current Uggs collection ranges in price from $80 for children’s sizes to $450 for the classic adult boot.)

“Since then, I’ve always had a pair,” Huntington-Whiteley said. “They’re so special to me. They’ve been a staple in my wardrobe. They represent the off-duty time in my life, the softer side of me.”

She said she wears them with everything — short dresses, cut-off shorts and bikinis — adding that her favorite way is to “rock them with bare legs and no socks.”

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“I know it sounds weird, but they really are great like that — cool, sloppy, chilled-out,” said Huntington-Whiteley, who shot the spring/summer 2017 Uggs campaign at the home of uber-designer Kelly Wearstler the same day as the dinner party.

For 2017, Ugg is stepping in a different direction by offering its first footwear without the shearling, enticing potential customers who still think of the brand as one designed for heavy winter use.

The new warmer-weather-oriented shoe collection will be made of perforated suede and leather, also include slides as an option, and be “floppy, more bohemian, a great pair to have in L.A.,” Huntington-Whiteley said.

During the dinner, Huntington-Whiteley, wearing a sparkly short black dress designed by Rachel Zoe, played the part of effervescent and gracious host, gliding up and down the long, flower-bedecked tables, chatting amiably with guests, who included Zoe, Kate Bosworth and Sara Foster.

The brand ambassador said she was poised to take the global part of her job quite seriously, preparing to head to Tokyo and Shanghai soon for meet-and-greet events there.

And of course, she likely wouldn’t go without packing her Uggs.

“I think of how enormous the brand is — how truly global it is,” Huntington-Whiteley said. “Everybody has some connection with it in some way.”

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image@latimes.com

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