Priscilla Presley’s style evolution, from demure and girly to fashion icon
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The new year has barely started and, already, we’re having our first screen-to-street fashion moment, courtesy of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla which landed in cinemas on Monday.
Coppola’s films are always a visual feast and this is no different. But Priscilla, which charts the title character’s early life and marriage to Elvis Presley, looks set to influence our wardrobes off-screen too. The trailer alone, apparently, piqued our appetite; searches for “Priscilla” on eBay over the past month are up by 35 per cent, according to the online retailer.
It’s not just because the late Fifties and Sixties were such a rich period for style, or because the film’s costumes are so faithfully recreated, or because Cailee Spaeny portrays Priscilla so convincingly (although all of these things are true).
What’s really made the difference is the fact that fashion plays a key – if rather dark – role in Priscilla’s life story. Now 78, she has made no secret of the fact that Elvis essentially moulded her image. She was just 14 when they met in 1959; living with him at Graceland by 17, and 21 when they married. This began with the heart locket she wore on a black ribbon choker in the early days of their relationship and continued with her babydoll wedding dress. “I was Elvis’s doll,” she wrote in her 1985 biography Elvis and Me. “His own living doll to fashion as he pleased.”
As the wife of The King, Priscilla became a kind of fashion influencer, inspiring legions of women to follow suit – but today, her impact is often overshadowed by Twiggy, Brigitte Bardot and Jackie Kennedy. “Priscilla has been more of an undercover influence – someone that those in the know would mood board,” says Alexandra Fullerton, a stylist and founder of My 3 Words. “Yet when you delve into her wardrobe, you can see that she was completely of the moment and, as Sixties style is so timeless, her outfits look completely right for now.”
Priscilla’s carefully cultivated look didn’t end with her clothes. On Elvis’s instruction, she dyed her hair black to match his, and began wearing heavy eye makeup, carving a visual identity from which we still borrow today – just look at the image of singer Lana Del Rey. “While she is defined by the beauty trends of the Sixties, the creamy nude lipstick, contrasting lipliner and graphic winged eyeliner is one of the most flattering looks for women at any age,” says Telegraph beauty editor Annabel Jones. “We just have better formulations to work with now.”
The “Priscilla Effect” doesn’t just apply to the 1960s. She and Elvis both shifted to a more bohemian look at the start of the Seventies, with Priscilla trading shift dresses for patchwork flares and that black beehive for soft, dark blonde waves – and that aesthetic is trending too, with searches on eBay for “purple trousers” similar to the pair worn in a memorable 1970 shoot with Elvis, up by 45 per cent. But it wasn’t until their divorce in 1973 that she finally had the freedom to carve her own style path.
She had fun doing it, too. This is a woman who has always loved fashion, to the extent that she opened her own Beverly Hills boutique, Bis & Beau, later that year. Her Studio 54 Halston-esque evening gowns, retro floral prints and denim bikinis of the 1970s gave way to boiler suits and power shoulders in the 1980s – a role on Dallas as Jenna Wade saw her, again, influencing the wardrobes of women across the globe.
Today, Priscilla has settled on a look that borrows from her past without being a slave to it. The winged eyeliner is still there, but it’s softened with brown shadow; her hair is still dark, but warmed through with red, and her wardrobe is largely sleek and monochrome – she wears a lot of Celine.
For the rest of us, it is the Prisicilla of the Sixties that is resonating the most right now, and Jones believes that this look will influence fashion and beauty in 2024 in much the same way Barbie did in 2023. Actress Anya Taylor-Joy and singer Ariana Grande are already channelling this aesthetic, and the era has been a major reference point for the likes of Chanel, Versace and Emilia Wickstead for the coming season.
All of this is long overdue, says Fullerton. “Priscilla deserves her moment in the spotlight.”
