Tag Archives: Elvis Fashion

I like this because it showed Elvis drinking milk. Then I noticed that his jacket looked familiar. Before I tell you, do you want to guess where he wore it?

The answer is Elvis‘ first appearance on the Milton Berle Show, April 3,1956.

According to ELVIS: From A to Z:

[Elvis] and Berle did a brief comedy sketch, with Berle playing his “twin brother,” Melvin Presley. During the sketch Berle mistakenly referred to Elvis as “Elvin.”

I’ve never read that Elvis made a stink about the lack of sensitivity with the twin brother bit and Berle screwing up his name. Elvis had better manners than that.

I’ve seen lots of posters for Jailhouse Rock, but this is new to me. I like it because of the big four actions that we’ve never seen like this before:

SINGING
FIGHTING
ROMANCING
DANCING

There were only two movies before Jailhouse Rock — Love Me Tender and Loving You, so is this claim true?

Love Me Tender rates lower in singing, for sure. Fighting, too, because we’re talking about swinging fists, not getting shot and dying. Love Me Tender also had zero romancing and dancing.

Loving You had some great singing, but not the equal of Jailhouse Rock. Pretty much the same with fighting. Loving You had little romancing and no dancing.

Looks like the ad called it right. We hadn’t seen Elvis in action like this before Jailhouse Rock.

Isn’t this an interesting shot? You don’t often see Elvis’ hair look like that.

These are SpectraVision Video Discs of three Elvis Movies. If you are too young to remember video discs, here’s how far back they are in the evolution of watching movies at home. Before Blu-Ray, DVD, VHS, and BetaMax, there were video discs. But they’re a good Elvis collectible because they’re rare and have big color pictures on them.

The tag on this picture said, “Priscilla and Elvis getting ready for a motorbike ride in LA, 1965-66.” I have read quite a few times that Elvis didn’t like wearing blue jeans because they reminded him of his poor upbringing. However, I keep seeing pictures like this covering a long time period showing him wearing them, so I don’t know.

I didn’t know Elvis ever had a green jumpsuit. I thought I had something unique in my book when Big E wore one.

This was taken between July 9 to 19 in 1956 when Elvis was on vacation with family and a few close friends in Biloxi and Ocean Springs on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A lot has been written about Elvis as a fashion icon, so I wondered what my friend Zoey Goto, famous fashion reporter, would think about this outfit.

I asked her, and she sent back this:

For me,. the way Elvis styled his shirt – knotting it at the front to expose both his chest and navel would have been very shocking within the context of the time, when gender stereotypes were more rigid.

But I actually feel Elvis was so ahead of the curve, that we still haven’t quite caught up with his style. Menswear is still pretty conservative and wary of appearing too “feminine” by putting men in pink or exposing the male body. Elvis just didn’t care about this rule book. He had such confidence within himself, he managed to wear these risky outfits in the ’50s, and later the body skimming bejeweled jumpsuits, and was still seen as a very macho and desirable man.

This outfit in particular, topped off with the sailor’s hat, would end up looking camp on pretty much every guy apart from Elvis!

Thank you Zoey.

I’ve plugged her book before when she gives me insightful stuff to use in the blog, but also because it is totally different than any other Elvis book. Please check out Elvis Style. 

This is probably a fan photo. How cool would it have been to get that close to Elvis strolling through a parking lot and snap a photo of him?

This is Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mom. She was a member of the Sweet Inspirations, but left the group in August 1969.

This shot was taken during the filming of Aloha from Hawaii. I love the cameraman out on the end of that crane. This was a big-time production.

There was some text on this picture, but I took it off. I like the image of a shiny metallic surface being peeled off to reveal Elvis.

Usually Elvis movie posters are full of exclamatory phrases, but this has just two words, Speedway and Elvis. I don’t think any other movie poster had a larger image of Elvis’ costar than him, but having him dancing on top of the race car is pretty clever.

Elvis owned and gave away a lot of lightning bolt TCB jewelry. But his custom made money clip here has an interesting variation on the design. I think I like it better. The clip sold for $20,755 at auction.

This is the downstairs TV Room as it looked before 1974. Here it is after remodeling.

Three TVs now, gold records are gone, much more modern. I’ve never read anything that said what percentage of his time Elvis spend in the various rooms of Graceland. But I’ll bet he spent a lot of good times down here.

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