Clothing Zip

[coccinelle]

Can anybody tell me what type of clothing Churchill is refering to in his memoirs when he talks about a 'Zip'? It isn't a zip as we know nowadays to join two pieces of material; it's a piece of clothing which in one passage he states was undignified (to accompany someone to the airport in Middle East).
Hope someone can enlighten me...

[xstitcher]

He wore zip up shoes (zippers instead of shoe laces) and also boiler suits but I don't know if the latter were zip ups.

[xstitcher]

http://asuitablewardr...hurchill-zips-up.html

Check this out for his zip shoes.

[ABerrant]

Perhaps it is in reference to the zip-up siren suits for which he developed a penchant but I believe that his preferred term for these was "romper suit".

[coccinelle]

Thank you but I think it was clothing and not shoes he was referring to. Maybe a boiler suit so will have to search a bit more. Thank you, especially xstitcher for that link.

[ironmonger]

I think it must be a siren suit. It was a one piece garment with a zip.
I remember seeing him in London during the war wearing a red one
and it looked like velvet. He was known to jump out of bed and put
it on over his pyjamas.

[coccinelle]

Yes, ironmonger that's the thing. he had to accompany Roosevelt to the airport and pulled on this zip thing over pyjamas which he felt in the circumstances wasn't very approriate. In his memoirs he calls it a zip (even zip became a code name when a battle was started) but on the net this word isn't used just a siren suit. Thank you for confirming this.