IT WAS John Lennon who said "before Elvis there was nothing". Of course, the Beatle wasn't just talking about The King's music. When Elvis arrived on the pop scene in 1956 he introduced a new rhythm to music, sex, language and fashion.
During a decade in which teenagers had yet to be invented, adolescent boys dressed like their fathers and girls just like their mothers. Then a 21-year-old snake-hipped American singer wiggled on to the world's television screens and changed everythi
ng.
Lip curled, hair quiffed, wearing voluminous trousers, gaudy colours and blue suede shoes, this new sex symbol mesmerised one generation while simultaneously alienating another. Boys wanted to be him, girls fell instantly in love with him and - most importantly - their parents all hated him. The teenager was born, and with it came a new and suitably rebellious wardrobe, inspired, of course, by Elvis Presley.
While Marlon Brando and James Dean were wearing the working man's uniform of Levi jeans and white cotton T-shirts, Elvis's more theatrical pink clothes, his eye shadow, his shoe-blacked hair and eyebrows (their natural colour was sandy brown) were all "evidence" of his power to destroy the morals of American youth, and soon teenagers were being sent home from school for dressing like Elvis.
The man at the centre of the furore affected surprise at all the fuss coming from the conservative media. "They ask me why I wear the clothes I do," Elvis coolly said at the time. "What can I say? I just like nice clothes, that's all."
He had unwittingly changed youth culture for ever, moving American fashion away from the elite and toward the street, where Teddy Boys reigned supreme. Just as he adapted black music and made it his own, Elvis was effectively a white man dressed in black people's clothing.
"Elvis arrived on the scene during a time when teenagers dressed like their parents. Suddenly here was this incredible style icon who was accessible. He wasn't royalty, he was the boy next door. He was the same class as them and, unlike other [pop] idols such as Bill Haley or Frank Sinatra, he was also very close to them in age," says Julie Mundy, the author of Elvis Fashion, who was allowed unprecedented access to the 6,000 pieces of clothing in Elvis's Graceland wardrobe to research her book.
As a 17-year-old kid still in high school, and with a part-time job as a cinema usher, Presley would regularly press his nose against the window of the upscale Memphis menswear store Lansky Brothers. Popular among black musicians from the smoky Memphis blues clubs, the store was packed by its stylish owner Bernard Lansky with unusual yellow suits, pink sports coats, silk shirts and white shoes.
With his first taste of success and improved finances, Presley became a loyal customer at Lansky's, ordering colourful silk shirts, hi-boy collar shirts, peg-legged pants and fur jackets.
He called this eclectic, flamboyant style his "hillbilly cat" look. "Cat clothes are absolutely a must, as far as I'm concerned," he once said. "My favourite hobby is collecting these real cool outfits, and I'd almost rather wear them than eat!"
Elvis mentioned Lansky's whenever anyone asked where he bought his clothes. "When Elvis Presley put on our threads, that changed the whole of American society,'' said Lansky, who put Elvis in both his first and last suits. (Elvis was buried in a simple blue suit from Lansky's, which was picked out by his father.)
While Lansky helped Elvis to shape his unique sartorial style, it was clear from an early age that the budding singer was an instinctively snappy dresser. Early family photographs show him clad in woollen box-shaped jackets, pegged trousers and black-and-white Oxford shoes. In 1953, an 18-year-old Elvis attended a job interview at the state Employment Security Office, where records from the time described him as a "rather flashily dressed, playboy type".
He remained a flamboyant dresser throughout his showbiz career. "I like real conservative clothes," he said in 1956. "Something that's not too flashy. But onstage I like 'em as flashy as you can get."
Nineteen-fifties Elvis was relatively restrained, compared to his later incarnations. Western-style shirts, striped T-shirts, skinny trousers and cable-knit jumpers were all fixtures along with his showier onstage outfits - vividly hued suits and shirts. "So many of the photographs you see of Elvis are in black and white, so you don't see the incredibly bright colours he wore. His wardrobe was amazingly colourful," says Mundy.
His favourite colour combination was black and pink, and he often wore black suits with pink piping and bright shirts - with the collar up, of course. He is said to have worn his collars flicked up moodily because he thought his neck was too long and scrawny.
And then there was the hair. Apparently both Presley and his mother, Gladys, were fans of the actor Tony Curtis: the young Elvis particularly admired his hair. He began wet-combing his own hair into the famous Curtis-style quiff, and Elvis and his enormous pompadour soon broke the hearts of a million female fans and spawned endless copycats among young men.
By the time of 1957's Jailhouse Rock, Elvis had made the rockabilly look - denim worn with sports coats, stripy T-shirts, two-tone loafers - entirely his own. However, in reality he always hated wearing denim, thinking of it as blue-collar workwear which reminded him of his impoverished childhood. But by the late 1960s and early 1970s, when denim became widely fashionable, he wore it occasionally, with that inimitable Elvis twist - his denim was studded with rhinestones.
Such an ostentatious dresser is naturally an inspiration for designers, who have been interpreting Elvis's look for years. Gianni Versace said he wished he could have designed for Elvis - "that job I would have liked" - and Tommy Hilfiger described him as "the first white boy to really bling it up".
One costume that he didn't have much say in was, of course, his conscript's uniform. Television audiences watched in horror as the famous quiff was reduced to a regulation buzzcut by a US Army barber. However, Elvis still stood out in his khakis, and those bambi eyes were never more dazzling than when they gazed out from beneath the peak of his army cap.
After leaving the army, Elvis embraced an even more opulent look: by 1960 he was lounging around Graceland in beaded and gold-embroidered caftans, appearing in public in wild outfits ranging from a full-length white leather coat with black fur trim, to a tan leather suit with a rainbow-coloured leather fringe, a black-and-white fur coat paired with white velvet trousers, and a chocolate-brown faux-fur suit with matching hat.
At his wedding to Priscilla Beaulieu in 1967, he wore a bespoke tuxedo in paisley jacquard and a lace-trimmed white shirt, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "upstaging the bride"; Priscilla, in her modest, off-the-rack white dress, was completely overshadowed on her big day.
And then there are the jumpsuits. Beloved by a thousand Elvis impersonators, loathed by many of Elvis's more die-hard fans, the rhinestone-encrusted all-in-ones have become the look for which Elvis is best remembered. Teamed with gold aviator sunglasses, a cape and an unmissable paunch, they were like nothing seen before or since.
Elvis was a black belt in karate, and the first jumpsuit he wore was based on a karate ghi. A lot of it was of his own design, and he moved on to the one-piece suit because when he did a squat or a stretch he wanted the trousers to move with the top. The suits, designed by Bill Belew, gradually got more ostentatious. The trousers became flared, a heavy, gold-plated belt replaced the fabric tie belt and embroideries of leaping tigers, spread eagles or Presley's personal motto, "TCB" (Taking Care of Business) smothered the white polyester.
The 1970s look may be associated with "fat Elvis" but, Mundy explains, the King wasn't as pudgy as we all think. "I was shocked to see how slender all his clothes were, right until the end," she says. "Some of the late jumpsuits had a 32-inch waist and a 42-inch chest. He was the perfect clothes horse."
Fans would give each jumpsuit a nickname: The Adonis, The Mad Tiger, The King of Spades. His on-stage outfits were as popular with his fans as they had been when he was in his twenties. In fact, were it not for his incredible talent, his wild stage gear might have threatened to overshadow everything else. As the Vegas-era Presley once mused: "If the songs don't go over, we can do a medley of costumes."
ELVIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS
THE FANS ARE OUT THERE
THE Elvisians, members of an Elvis fan club in California, believe that The King was so great he touched the hearts of humans and aliens alike. They believe there are fans living in the outer reaches of the solar system with whom they hope some day to communicate. "Elvisian ambassadors are needed globally, because where the alien Elvis fans will land on [this] planet is difficult to predict," Elvisian Beverly Thames told Fox News. "We do know they'll be making their way [towards] Graceland soon after they arrive."
THE KING LIVES ON
COLONEL Tom Parker, Elvis's manager, told reporters shortly after his death: "Elvis didn't die. The body did." It appears that some newspaper readers took this statement too literally: every day, officials at Graceland receive on average seven phone callers asking to speak to "The King". Protocol is to hang up immediately.
EARLY ELVIS/TEDDY BOYS
A FAVOURITE with his teenage fans, the baggy trousers, long bright jackets, skinny ties, bright socks and slick shoes that Elvis wore in the 1950s were an antidote to the sober, grey post-Second World War suits men had become used to wearing. Young men copied the look, complete with "Duck's Ass" quiffed hair, pink-and-black colour combinations and a distinctive snarl. Also in part inspired by clothes of the Edwardian period, those wearing this style were nicknamed Teddy Boys, below.
HAWAII
ELVIS fell in love with the place while filming Blue Hawaii in 1961, and often wore Hawaiian shirts and garlands, both on and off-stage. Dolce & Gabbana, (for whom Presley's granddaughter, Riley Keough, has modelled), opened their spring/summer 2005 show with supermodel Jessica Stam wearing a Hawaiian shirt, quiff, skinny trousers, white socks, "winklepicker" shoes and a guitar. The finale featured models strutting down the catwalk in T-shirts printed with pictures of Presley's face.
BLING
BY THE late 1950s Elvis was becoming more and more ostentatious, his sartorial excesses culminating in the famous gold lamé suit, above, which cost a rumoured $10,000. By the time he died, he had embraced excess to the point of vulgarity, piling on oversized gold jewellery, diamonds, silks, furs and leathers. Today, rappers from P Diddy to R Kelly are fans of expensive furs and "bling" - flaunting their new-found wealth through their clothes and jewellery - but Elvis did it first.
LEATHERS
ELVIS'S comeback special in 1968 spawned a whole new range of looks, most famously the head-to-toe leathers that helped to prove that The King still had style. The look - gleaming, clingy black leather, jacket collar up, enormous quiff - has been copied relentlessly since. Sharleen Spiteri paid tribute to Elvis in Texas's 2001 video for Inner Smile, wearing skin-tight leather, and David and Victoria Beckham wore matching head-to-toe Gucci leather outfits at a film premiere in 1999.
JUMPSUITS
WIDELY considered to be Elvis's tackiest look, the famous jumpsuit is also undeniably his most popular and the favoured look for Elvis impersonators. Britney Spears wore a suitably daring white jumpsuit in homage to The King when she performed at Las Vegas in 2001; in 2002, Dior produced a white women's trouser suit with ornate embroidery. And that king of bling, Julien MacDonald, also got in on the act in 2002, presenting a crystal-encrusted all-in-one, with high collar and rhinestone cuffs.
ELVIS - TO GO
YOU'VE perfected the quiff and the curled lip. Now it's time to embrace the kitsch Elvis accessories. Look hard enough and you'll find Elvis-branded everything, but here's our pick of the tackiest, trashiest, most fabulous fit-for-The-King items available.
• Get the kids in on the act with these miniature blue suede (well, leather) shoes, monogrammed in silver. After all, babies are too young and feeble to protest.
Price: £16 from www.chareva.co.uk
• Featuring a pouting Elvis, these fabulously kitsch cufflinks will bring down the tone of even the classiest suit.
Price: £21.95 from www.mojolondon.co.uk
• Say "Aloha!" with these Hawaiian garlands. Team them with a Hawaiian shirt and a smile, or a white jumpsuit and a curled lip.
Price: From £1.25 from www.hawaiianparty.co.uk
• Strictly for teenage girls or anyone devoid of good taste, this Elvis diamanté necklace is beyond tacky - so much so it's almost stylish.
Price: £7.50 from www.kitsch.co.uk
• Wear this Elvis belt buckle over your favourite jumpsuit and wait for the marriage proposals to flood in. Two words: Chick. Magnet.
Price: £12.99 from www.ultravixen.co.uk
• Run out of ideas for your granny's birthday present? These "Elvis Memories" slippers are sure to secure your inheritance.
Price: £14.99 from www.elvisgifts.co.uk
The full article contains 2276 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
