January 1, 2025

New Series on YouTube with Kirby Allison

Style maven Kirby Allison has created a three-part documentary series on YouTube called “Winston Churchill: The Fabric of the Man” as a way of celebrating the 150th anniversary of Churchill’s birth. Allison starts with a visit to Blenheim Palace, where Churchill was born in 1874 and concludes with a visit to Chartwell, Churchill’s beloved country estate in Kent. In between he visits some of the high-end retailers still in business that Churchill patronized and which give a sense of the great statesman’s style.

In Episode One, Allison visits Blenheim Palace and speaks with the Marquess of Blandford, son and heir of the present Duke of Marlborough, who is an honorary member of the International Churchill Society. Allison then travels to London and visits Floris, the perfumery that supplied Churchill with his standard fragrance Special Number 127. The episode concludes with a discussion about Pol Roger, Churchill’s preferred champagne. To watch the first installment, please CLICK HERE.

In the second episode, Allison goes to Saville Row to meet with the proprietor and staff of Henry Poole & Co., the tailor shop that provided Churchill with his formal and parliamentary dress as well as his famed bespoke siren suits. Next on the tour is St. James’s and a visit to Lock & Co, the world’s oldest hat shop, which supplied Churchill with his signature Cambridge hat as well as his well known Homburgs. To watch the second installment, please CLICK HERE.

The final episode of the three-part series includes a visit to James J. Fox, the tobacconist shop only doors away from Lock & Co. which supplied Churchill with cigars for sixty years and reveals that in his later years, in addition to his well-known love of Cuban cigars, Churchill also enjoyed cigars from Jamaica. The series concludes with a journey to Chartwell. To watch the third installment, please CLICK HERE.