When The Telegraph recently featured Harriet Cowan, one of Britain's best-known young farmers, it was an unexpected pleasure to spot the V12 Footwear name cropping up.

During the interview, Cowan swaps her trainers “for a pair of steel-toecap V12 boots” before heading out onto the farm. Cue proud smiles and beaming faces at V12 HQ. And while the publicity was a pleasant surprise to all of us, perhaps Harriet’s choice of footwear needn't have been. While V12 has been making work boots for farmers for almost three decades, this year, one boot in particular has been making a BIG impression.

From Cereals 2026, the wider Clarkson's Farm community to some of farming's most recognisable names, the Cotswold STS has become the work boot everyone's been asking about. And when people working in one of the world's most demanding industries are choosing to swap into a new product - from global agri influencers to Clarkson and his entourage - it’s a pretty clear sign of a quality product.

The challenge

Long before the Cotswold became one of the talking points of Cereals, it began with a question for our product development team. How do you take the qualities farmers already need and value in a safety boot (iconic dealer style and sturdy construction) and create something lighter, more flexible and cushioned to suit the demands of modern agricultural work?

Our Rawhide dealer had already made a serious impact in the industry - it’s V12’s best-selling boot and has become a genuine agri icon. But, farming is demanding - and varied in its demands too. A farmer can cover 14,000 steps in a day, and on uneven terrain. The climate is changing as well - and this means conditions can change more rapidly or abruptly: dry and dusty ground can quickly turn into mud, rain and standing water.

So, the goal was to develop a boot that maintained style, strength and durability whilst meeting these modern farming challenges by reducing weight, boosting shock absorption and optimising grip stability. Cue the Cotswold.

Then came Cereals

Cereals 2026 was the perfect place to launch the Cotswold, because we knew the attendees were exactly the kind of people we designed it for. And the response? It was quick, and it was very positive. Visitors were soon keen to get their hands on - and feet in - the Cotswold to find out what all the excitement was about, and so the dealer flew off the stand throughout the show and became one of the biggest talking points of the event.

But by the second day, the weather had turned. Heavy rain made parts of the Cereals site muddy and difficult to navigate. Fortunately, the V12 team wasn't having quite the same trouble. As you may expect, their underfoot grip game was strong, and they handled the muddy walkways with ease. And this actually left them in a good position to answer a call for help…

Agricultural content creator and presenter Sammy Heaney had run into trouble when the worsening conditions meant her tent needed to be relocated. Cue the ever-willing V12 team. Andy, Charlie, Jesse and Tom stepped up. (It is the V12 Footwear motto after all) Rolling up their sleeves, they helped Sammy move her stand to a drier area and got her up and running again.

What was also very pleasing to see was that Sammy was already a V12 fan - in fact she was wearing a pair from our True Women’s Fit range at the show. As a brand that has worked consistently to provide women with safety footwear built on a specific female-fit last for top-level comfort, it was another encouraging connection. And after the guys stepped in to help, Sammy gave V12 a brilliant shout-out and featured the team in one of her videos. That's what we call teamwork...

Booting up Diddly Squat

Cereals also gave V12 the chance to strengthen its relationship with the wider Clarkson's Farm and Diddly Squat community. And actually, Jeremy Clarkson has had a brief encounter with one of our boots already. In one episode, while browsing in the farm shop, Clarkson casually put his foot on the toe of one of our dealers to see if it was a safety boot. Unfortunately, this test also left a rather mucky footprint behind on the display boot - something Clarkson himself seemed slightly rueful about. See below...

We forgive you Jeremy. 😜 So, we felt it was only right to ensure his team was properly equipped for any future Clarkson boot tests...

So, as well as our event stock, we brought around 80 pairs of Cotswold boots to Cereals to kit out teams associated with the wider Clarkson's Farm world, including Hawkstone, The Farmer's Dog, the Diddly Squat Farm Shop and other members of the farm team.

Harriet Cowan's boots

Harriet Cowan wears the V12 Cotswold, our lightweight agri dealer boot, for everyday use around her farm.

Young farmer and Clarkson's Farm breakout star Cowan has become one of the most recognisable young faces in British agriculture, with 1.4 million combined social media followers and a growing profile following her appearance on the show. But beyond the audience figures, she's also a working farmer, bringing energy, visibility and fresh perspectives to the industry. So when, in her recent interview in The Telegraph, Harriet, now one of agriculture's most influential young figures, swaps her white trainers for a pair of steel toecap V12 boots before heading out across the farm, it's a welcome sign that our footwear is doing the job.

Why are V12s becoming the go-to farm boots?

Agriculture is one of the most demanding environments any piece of footwear can face. Thousands of steps, uneven terrain, machinery, mud, manure - and weather that can go from one extreme to another in a matter of weeks. Harriet's Telegraph interview is a clear example of this unpredictability, describing scorched fields, dusty ground and a harvest completed far earlier than expected. And that means footwear has to be tough, agile and comfortable. And the Cotswold was designed to nail all three.

Finding V12

From the first conversations around developing a lighter farmers' boot, to the rapturous reaction it received at Cereals, the Cotswold has had quite a year. Finding its way onto the feet of some of the most recognisable teams and names in British farming, and then appearing in one of Britain's most influential newspapers.

And if V12s are becoming the go-to boots for farmers, it's time our readers got their pair if they haven’t already! With the winter weather on the way, now seems like the perfect time. Click below to take a look.