Presley’s favorite, according to Polston, was the Peacock Suit. Indeed, the costumes were given names such as the Burning Love Suit (red with several pinwheel designs), the Flame Suit (the first of two versions had large jewels in a flame design on the front, on the back and down the legs) and the Dragon Suit (an embroidered dragon embellished with rhinestones). “If the songs don’t go over,” Presley joked backstage at the International Hotel in 1970, “we can do a medley of costumes.”īelew said in one interview that, in watching the reaction of fans to Presley’s onstage costumes, “we began to get more elaborate.” In 1970, Presley began wearing the Belew-designed jumpsuits.Īs described by Polston, they included a tall Napoleonic collar to frame the singer’s face, had Edwardian pointed sleeves and featured bell bottoms that had an insert called a kick pleat to give the jumpsuit more flair. “And I never wanted anything to compromise his masculinity.” “I wanted the clothes to be easy and seductive,” he said in the 1999 interview. The result was a two-piece, karate gi-inspired garment - in both black and white - that Belew called the Cossack Suit. Polston said that when Elvis was preparing to make his return to live performing in Las Vegas in 1969 at the International Hotel, he asked Belew to create something unique that he could easily move around in like his karate gi. “At that time, though, we were into denim, and I said, ‘What if I just duplicate a denim outfit in black leather?’ Elvis loved it.”Īdded Belew, who is said to have later helped remove the famous leather outfit from Presley’s sweat-soaked body: “He was a great person to dress. “He may have worn a leather jacket, but that’s about it,” Belew said. “It always seemed like people assumed he wore black leather, but he never did,” Belew recalled in an interview with in 1999. It didn’t take the designer long to come up with his idea for what Elvis should wear in the concert segment before a live audience. Belew had already worked on a Petula Clark special with producer-director Steve Binder when Binder asked him to do the wardrobe for the hourlong Presley show.
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