Winston Churchill was my boyhood hero, on the grounds that as an adult I would live a life of accomplishment while being free to disdain exercise, smoke cigars and lead an extravagant existence that was well beyond my means. Worthwhile goals indeed and I have been fortunate to achieve the latter three if not the first. Churchill Style: The Art Of Being Winston Churchill by Barry Singer (Abrams Image, ISBN: 0-8109-9643-X) offers the reader a look at how a master did it.
Unlike the volumes upon volumes that have been written about Churchill's public history, Churchill Style focuses on his personal life, including, as Michael Korda writes in the forward, his "preferred shirts, cigars, brandy, champagne, shoes and all the other things that meant so much to him." It is illustrated with sixty photographs, many of them rarely seen, and includes my personal favorite on the cover: Churchill sitting out doors at home, cigar in hand and wearing one of his siren suits. He lacks only a snifter of cognac.
Churchill was a polymath: voracious reader and expert Shakespearean, Impressionist-style landscape painter, Nobel prize-for-literature-winning author, decorated soldier, and, according to a letter written by his long suffering wife Clementine, wearer of underwear that was “very finely woven silk (pale pink) … from the Army and Navy stores and (which) cost the eyes out of his head.” His shoes were bespoke and his clothing tailored by, as legend and a copy of an unpaid bill from E. Tautz that includes charges as much as six years old would have it, whichever of his Savile Row firms he did not owe money. This was a man for whom only the best would suffice, who laid bricks at home dressed in a homburg hat and a vested suit. The story of his style is well worth while.
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13 comments:
Thanks for the heads-up. I'm not a fan of Churchill (in my family he's known as the "Butcher of Dresden", not to mention what he did to the Boers!), but I'm sympathetic to certain elements of his personal style; which, nonetheless, strikes me as slightly down-at-heel in certain respects.
I think that books like this can be quite entertaining and informative and there should probably be similar exercises in relation to other people too.
Interesting that Michael Korda, whose uncle, Sir Alexander, was a friend of Churchill and a man of great taste (Knize, Sulka etc.) wrote the foreword.
Olivier.
I finished the reading of this book last week, and I must say I really enjoyed it.
Full of photographs and facts of the private life on Mr. Churchill, it is a truely entertaining reading for anyone interested in history and in the good things in life.
Got a laugh from the first paragraph.
Churchill was an individualist and an individual dresser in many ways; a rather snappy dresser in his youth. His wardrobe proves to have had some novel and interesting pieces.
We want to not confuse that with the deeds, but his flaws are so many. His extravagant dining while the rest of the country suffered war rationing. Lounging around in bed till noon while war generals planned battles and then taking the credit on the strength of a rousing speech! Yes he saw Hitler's rise, but he wasn't the only one, just the noisiest and most ambitious. Conveniently forgetting his awful Gallipoli failure.
His style is worth looking at, but as a figure I think he's an overrated aristocrat who won the Nobel prize for literature for reasons other than his prose.
Dunhill also has a couple of his 'Siren Suits' in their archive.
As controversial in death as he was in life! The greatest thing that he did, with little or no money apart from his earnings, was to live doing what he wanted on his own terms. Most people live as slaves; sometimes, well paid slaves - but they still live as slaves.
Funny, I just finished reading this rather excellent book today.
Also funny, decades after, he's still excoriated by some fairly or not. Though definitely unfairly in the case of the attempt to belittle Churchill's Nobel. If you want to see one who most certainly does not deserve his, look no further than our esteemed Mr. President; but please, Churchill deserved his many times over.
Apparently there are some still mourning the failure of the thousand year Reich...
I suggest a tug o' war between the pro-Winnies and the anti-Winnies, across the Mississippi River, at noon local time, on Boxing Day 2012. I am organizing the deck chairs.
Forgive me for wanting to see a Churchill spoof on ‘Gangnam Style’.
I understand Robert meant it as a criticism, but as someone who knows a thing or two about being in bed until noon, I'd say in Churchill's case it's absolutely a compliment. The man typically ended his "day" by reading the early editions of the newspapers at midnight, then slept for 5 hours, woke, and conducted the work of at least 3 men from his bed until lunchtime.
Duties included acting as Minister of Defence, so beyond those speeches Roger dismissed (which united and galvanised Parliament and the populace alike in desperate times) he also directly approved virtually every military action of significance. So yes, he bombed Dresden (how very rude! what'd they do to us?), and he typically drank "Olympian" amounts of alcohol all day starting with white wine at breakfast. He also stormed around No. 10 wearing dragon-emblazoned red silk pajamas and slippers with pom-poms. At the very least we can all respect his style, even if ignorant revisionism leads the likes of Robert to criticise the most remarkable man of the 20th century.
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