The Man Makes the Clothes

WESTERHAM, U.K.—I traveled the distance from New York City to this little town in the county of Kent in southern England—by airplane, then train, then local taxi—just to see a grown man's onesie.

Before you conclude that I've taken leave of my senses (or make rash assumptions about my private life), I should point out that this is no ordinary onesie—just as the person to whom it once belonged was no ordinary man. It is the "siren suit"—a modified boiler suit—worn by Sir Winston Churchill during the Second World War, and it is on display—alongside five other "iconic garments" (in the words of the curators) at an exhibition titled "Churchill: Image and Power" at Chartwell.

Chartwell is the hilltop house Churchill longed for, a place that would allow him to escape the turbulence—both political and social—of London. He fell in love with it at first sight and acquired it in 1922 for £5,000. It was a ramshackle old pile of which his beloved wife, Clementine, had strongly disapproved. But Churchill bought it anyway, without telling her, and then spent a king's ransom (around £20,000) in making it habitable to Clementine's exacting tastes. (For a lovely account of Chartwell and its exhilarating history, I commend Churchill's Citadel, by Katherine Carter, reviewed in the Washington Free Beacon by yours truly. Carter, a historian of 20th-century politics, is the full-time curator at the house, now owned by Britain's splendid National Trust.)

Back to the magic onesie: This single-piece garment, capacious in its fit, is made of velvet and deep burgundy in color. It has button-down frontal flap-pockets (big enough to accommodate a handful of cigars and pens), an elongated semi-spread collar, and a frontal zipper that runs from the wearer's Adam's apple to his crotch. When he wanted to wear the garment, all Churchill had to do was step into it and then zip himself up.

This adaptation of the boiler or romper suit was called the siren suit because it could be put on by anyone at short notice over nightclothes when an air raid siren sounded and a person needed to rush to a bomb shelter with only very little time to dress and appear in public. Churchill, of course, wore his siren suits (tailored by Turnbull & Asser) day and night, turning the onesie into a sartorial statement. "One of the most necessary features of a public man's equipment is some distinctive mark which everyone learns to look for and to recognise," he wrote in 1931. His siren suit was, in this regard, almost paradigmatically Churchillian, and this particular item is on public display for the first time in the U.K.—rather charmingly, if incongruously, paired with a 10-gallon hat.

The historian Andrew Roberts tells us in his monumental and exquisite biography Churchill (2018) that old Winston's sartorial eccentricity can be explained by the fact that he was quite untrammeled by tradition. "Like a true aristocrat," writes Roberts, "he was no snob," and while the velveteen snugness of this particular siren suit suggests luxury, the proletarian design of the garment itself was Churchill's way of identifying with the ordinary Briton. "He enjoyed disregarding the rules of hierarchy," Roberts tells us, "often to others' fury."

Alongside the siren suit are displayed—in the Uniform Room at Chartwell—a small range of other dashing Churchillwear. These include his army officer's greatcoat, worn as Honorary Colonel of the 4th/5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment; his tropical service dress, replete with pith helmet (or topee), from his time as Honorary Colonel of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars; his "undress uniform" (or non-ceremonial wear) as an Elder Brother of Trinity House, an organization founded by a group of master mariners during the reign of Henry VIII; his service dress as an Air Commodore of the Royal Air Force, in RAF blue, with four brass buttons and a cloth sash-belt with an understated brass clasp (he was appointed honorary air commodore of the 615/County of Surrey Squadron in April 1939); and his Privy Councillor's full dress tailcoat.

The latter is a gorgeous, almost ostentatious garment covered in the chested front with gold brocade. It is in many ways the antithesis of the siren suit. Obviously of institutional (and not Churchill's own) design, it screams hierarchy, its wearer being at the apex of Britain's socio-political pyramid. Churchill was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council—a body which dates back to Norman times and is one of the oldest parts of His Majesty's Government—at the age of 32. He was appointed by Edward VII, who wrote to the younger man a few weeks before the ceremony, saying, "Knowing the great abilities which you possess—I am watching your political career with great interest. My one wish is that the great qualities you possess may be turned to good account and that your services to the State may be appreciated." (It is fair to say that the king's wish was fulfilled.)

Each uniform on display is paired with beautiful, sober, classic shoes—black cap-toe Oxfords, black Derbys, brown Oxfords, and a brown semi-brogue. The one exception is the siren suit, in which the mannequin is shod in velvet slippers. In a glass case alongside the six mannequins are displayed a pair of monogrammed slippers made in the 1950s by Nikolaus Tuczek, an Austro-Hungarian immigrant shoemaker who plied his trade in London's Mayfair (trading as "N. Tuczek"). The pair cost Churchill £14—around £415 in today's money. Norman McGowan, the great man's valet at the time, recorded that Churchill was "extremely attached to those slippers, but not because of [the] gold initials as much as for their comfort." The slippers share a glass case with a jaunty bow tie, navy blue with white polka dots, echoing (the curators tell us) the style of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.

Displayed next to the bow tie is another most distinctive Churchillian accessory, a stately black felt hat that Churchill called a "bowker"—a cross between a bowler and a top hat. "It was," the display caption says, "an unusual style among his peers, which made him stand out"—a result and effect that the not-always-modest Churchill found most satisfying.

A word about the mannequins, on which Churchill's uniforms are so eye-catchingly displayed. It goes without saying that mannequins do not come readily in Churchill's size—he was 5 feet 6 inches in his socks, and, at 220 pounds, not entirely svelte. Churchill's measurements (we're told) "changed during his lifetime." And so the exhibition at Chartwell commissioned bespoke mannequins on which the uniforms (tailored at different times in his life) would fit perfectly. Each uniform was individually measured, and specific mannequins were made to conform to the garments. They were also, say the curators, "positioned to match Churchill's posture and gait."

If you're a Churchill buff, the effect is exhilarating. It is as if the man—soldier, politician, statesman, savior—has come alive again at Chartwell, his home, his haven, his castle.

"Churchill: Image and Power" is at Chartwell until November 2, 2025.

Tunku Varadarajan, a writer with the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School's Classical Liberal Institute.

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