It’s 1968, an NBC TV particular. There’s a small stage, surrounded by primly-dressed girls with large bouffant dos and males dressed as if they is likely to be accountants. On the stage is a raven-maned man who sometimes sits on the steps to be among the many folks. However he’s clearly not of the folks – not least as a result of he’s in head to toe black leather-based. He’s the embodiment of rock’n’roll. He’s, after all, Elvis Presley.
It’s not a glance that may be simply pulled off until one was a rock’n’roll legend, or maybe a TT Race rider. However for Elvis it marks not simply his famed comeback however the pivotal level in his wardrobe. Thereafter, via the Nineteen Seventies, he would lapse, alongside along with his fried peanut butter sarnie waistline, into pure stagewear: the rhinestones, the flares, the capes and people Invoice Belew-designed, high-collared white jumpsuits (excellent for these black belt karate strikes), like some hip-swiveling anti-Dracula. This, unfairly, tarnished Elvis’ popularity as a method icon.
Even Elvis wasn’t such a fan of it. That legendary, $10,000 gold lame swimsuit of a decade earlier, which Colonel Parker commissioned for Presley from the rodeo tailor Nudie Cohn – the very man who made Johnny Money the ‘Man in Black’? He didn’t very similar to that both – he’d typically swap the trousers out for one thing plain and black. Ultimately he solely wore the total swimsuit thrice. When it was advised a brand new model be created for his ’68 comeback, Presley declined. “I have to be honest with you,” Presley mentioned to Belew. “I always hated that suit.”
Presley’s earlier wardrobe, all through most of Nineteen Fifties, was rather more him, and mockingly, rather more now. Consider Elvis right now and also you would possibly first think about ‘showtime’ Elvis – all exaggerated hair and jumpsuited up – nevertheless it’s his earlier costume sense that marks him out as a real fashion icon. And it feels significantly related right now – Cuban collar shirts, wide-legged, pleated trousers, blousons – these are all clothes making the rounds on the menswear circuit, however they had been additionally integral to Elvis’ Nineteen Fifties fashion wardrobe. He did all of it first.
Elvis carrying a Cuban collar shirt in 1955
On stage, he mentioned, typically he’d put on garments “as flashy as you can get them”. “[But] in public,” he added, “I like real conservative clothes, something that’s not too flashy”. Certainly, in lots of respects Presley wore the garments of his period. As a younger man he’d store at Lansky Bros in Memphis – to which he was a loyal buyer all his life – the place he realized to pop up his collar and the place he purchased high-waisted pegged trousers, two tone sneakers or easy black loafers, quick sleeve shirts, loose-fitting sack fits, skinny or bootlace ties: rockabilly, in different phrases.
One factor he wouldn’t put on, regardless of how modern they grew to become: denims. Presley all the time related working garments with the sharecropping poverty of his youth. He’d solely put on them if, say, a movie function the likes of Jailhouse Rock demanded it. Or if cash did. Satirically, Elvis lent his identify to Levi’s for his or her ‘Elvis Presley’ fashion, the primary black denim denims.
In 1956, carrying a Cuban collar shirt, black trousers, penny loafers and argyle socks
“He was very much a product of his time,” argues Dennis Nothdruft, curator at London’s Style & Textiles Museum, “albeit a very fashionable version. What made him stand out was less his clothes as him – because he was extremely attractive and he had this louche quality about him, which shows in how he wore the clothes. They seemed to be less fitted as draped on him, which reflected the way he moved. I think it’s fair to say he wouldn’t be a first choice for purely sartorial reasons but he did have a certain something about him and, of course, he did look incredibly cool in that black leather for his comeback.”
Acting on the NBC particular in 1968, carrying the well-known all-leather outfit
Certainly, even at its most preposterous off-stage, Elvis managed to drag it off. When he met with a strait-laced Richard Nixon within the White Home in 1972, Presley wore a gold-buttoned pea coat fashion jacket draped over his shoulders, a shirt with a collar larger than the lapels on Nixon’s jacket, and a belt with a buckle the dimensions of his head. Nicely, what else would a King put on to fulfill a President? “You dress kinda strange,” Nixon is claimed to have commented. “Well, Mr. President,” Elvis is claimed to have replied, “you got your show, and I got mine”.
Even when carrying what may appear merely his contemporaneous clothes selections, there was loads of consideration to element. When he began making a living Presley had his shirts made bespoke – he had elastic added on the cuffs and the elbows to present the sleeves a extra billowing look. He was, not like extra pedestrian males of his period, comfy carrying color: for shirts and socks his favorite was bubblegum pink, then thought of a distinctly female shade.
He’d fortunately conflict patterns. He’d get his grandmother to embroider his shirts with some distinctive element. His jewelry, after all, grew to become more and more extreme, however began with subtleties the likes of his ‘TCB’ (‘taking care of business’) signet ring – a deft bit of non-public, and later worthwhile, branding.
Elvis consuming an army-supplied packed lunch on the day he reported for obligation, 1958
After which, crowning all of it, after all, was that hair, an extended, retro pompadour – impressed by Presley’s time working as a truck driver, that being the signature ‘do for the kings of the road through the early 1950s – and most definitely counter to the favoured crewcuts of the period. Presley knew just how important what one disapproving child psychiatrist called that “badge of emptiness” was to his style, his rebel image and to his sex appeal. His hair was regularly dyed to ensure Presley’s naturally sandy blonde color achieved that jet black shade – males dyeing their hair was remarkable on the time – and required three totally different sorts of hair wax, on the similar time, to realize the specified look. He’d have a jojoba oil and vitamin E scalp therapeutic massage every day.
That Elvis was conscious of his picture was sure. What he was much less conscious of was the affect it might have on menswear at giant. Whereas his efficiency apparel was by no means prone to be emulated, the sheer magnitude of Presley’s fame – enhanced by his starring in 31 films over simply 13 years, genuinely redefining celeb within the course of – meant that his extra private wardrobe inevitably could be.
“I think most people would think of, say, Paul Newman or James Dean as stylish men from roughly that era before they’d think of Elvis,” as John Harrison, the inventive director of Gieves & Hawkes has it. “But it’s different if, say, you work in the fashion industry. Then Elvis embodies that whole ’50s look. He’s definitely a style icon.”
Three Key Elvis Appears Workwear Stylish
In King Creole (1959) Elvis wore essentially the most workmanlike outfit of his profession – even towards the stylist jail uniform of Jailhouse Rock. A chambray shirt over a white T-shirt, flat-fronted, wide-legged trousers and a moleskin, twin pocketed blouson. Elvis returned to related jacket types all through the ’50s and past, and it’s simple to see why. Right this moment this look is well replicated and has just lately been plugged by the likes of Prada x Mr Porter, Oliver Spencer and Burberry.
Rebellious Tailoring
For one in every of his earlier performances, round 1956, Elvis wearing a means that concurrently mirrored conference and defied it: he wore black trousers and loafers, with a white shirt underneath a unfastened becoming, contrasting tailor-made jacket. It was good however sassy too, even disruptive. “I can’t over-emphasise how shocking he looked and seemed to me that night,” one Roy Orbison would later recall. Apparently the very first thing Elvis did was to spit some gum onto the stage. Disapproving moms little question fainted on the spot.
Mid-Century Ease
One of many key points of interest of Elvis’ early fashion was the benefit of it. Sure, the way in which he wore his garments added to his nonchalance, however the clothes themselves had been easy and simple to put on. Right this moment, in a complicated world of fluorescent streetwear and flossing, that is an attractive means of dressing. Take this look as a working example – it’s made up of straight leg trousers, an open neck polo shirt, a bomber jacket and white sneakers. It’s not going to alter the world, nevertheless it’s an easy combo that anybody can recreate. And no, he’s not flossing.
