100 Most Influential People in Fashion

Fashion Influential #8: Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley
Born:
January 8, 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi
Died:
August 16, 1977
Fan of:
Gospel singer Jake Hess, Hank Snow, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubbs, Ted Daffan, Jimmie Rodgers, Jimmy Davis, Bob Willis.
Fans:
Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard, Johnny Hallyday, Adriano Celetano, Bobby Solo
Records sold: Unknown. Graceland reports over a billion.

Beginnings.
In terms of being a groundbreaker, Elvis is on the forefront. He’s broke ground before groundbreaking was invented. What comes before groundbreaking, anyway? Whatever it is, that’s Elvis. Without his contributions to popular culture, we’d all probably be wearing monochrome jumpsuits right now.

In 1954, Elvis pioneered the rockabilly style; a sexed-up union of country, R&B set to a hard, danceable beat. Play “Hound Dog” on the internal music player in your head and you’ll get the picture. That song captures the evolved sense of the genre. Elvis’s third job was driving trucks, it’s on this job that he started to wear his hair in the ducktail fashion, as was the style of truckers. This would later carry over into his own rebellious stage appearance making Elvis the first of many future fashion tragedies to embrace the “trucker” look. When Elvis did it, it was cool because he was actually a trucker.

Career Highs.
Elvis’s career took off with the torque equivalent to that of Space Shuttle Atlantis, and rarely slowed. Two days after his 21st birthday, Elvis made his first RCA recording in Nashville, Tennessee. Out of that session came “Heartbreak Hotel.” Three months later it hit number 1 on the U.S. charts selling more than a million copies. Elvis had entered the building with an uncompromising style that began with tight, black pant within which his famous hips tortured everyone from young women to fathers (for obviously different reasons).
Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I can't help it.
- Elvis Presley

Young, rich and good looking.
Career Lows.
Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, negotiated a contract in 1967 that gave him 50% of The King’s earnings. Parker was a gambler and it’s thought that it was this addiction that led to many overly commercial contracts. He was not the only associate to drag Presley down. In addition, after his 1973 divorce from Priscilla, prescription drugs began to take their toll. HE overdosed twice on barbiturates and was in a coma for three days. Incidentally, lab technicians were selling samples of Presley’s blood and urine, capitalizing on his poor health and fame.

Legacy.
Elvis, the later years, was a bedazzled, kitschy caricature of a pop-culture monster: Over-weight, drugged up and paranoid. As a Halloween costume, Fat Elvis probably second behind Dracula in all time popularity. But the young Elvis is a thing of legend. Notes director Steve Binder: "I'm straight as an arrow and I got to tell you, you stop, whether you're male or female, to look at him. He was that good looking. And if you never knew he was a superstar, it wouldn't make any difference; if he'd walked in the room, you'd know somebody special was in your presence."

Old, rich and full of karate.
Get the look.
Slicked back, jet-black hair in a subtle pompadour with modest sideburns, black button-down shirt tucked into black straight-leg jeans with pair of slender, 50s-style Gucci boots will forever be a cool look.

- John