Elvis Presley’s iconic “If I Can Dream” performance in his 1968 comeback special (left) was recreated on screen by Austin Butler in the 2022 biopic Elvis (right).
Vitals
Austin Butler as Elvis Presley, rock star on the eve of a comeback
Burbank, California, June 1968
Film: Elvis
Release Date: June 23, 2022
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Costume Designer: Catherine Martin
Tailor: Gloria Bava
Original Concept: Bill Belew
Background
Fifty-five years ago tonight, the King signaled his return to glory in the music world when NBC aired Singer Presents… Elvis, now also known as the ’68 Comeback Special.
Despite his start in music, Elvis Presley’s career through much of the ’60s was anchored in movies. There were a few winners among the mix, but the singer’s famously shrewd manager Colonel Tom Parker engineered them closer to formulaic, low-budget comedies that would yield higher profits—particularly when they could be linked to a soundtrack album, an opportunity less possible or profitable with the more dramatic (and often higher-quality) roles that Elvis preferred.
By late 1967, Elvis had grown disenchanted with the programmatic films like Clambake, Double Trouble, and Stay Away, Joe that had led him far from the recording and touring that cemented his colossal popularity in the ’50s. At the same time, Colonel Tom approached NBC with a million-dollar deal to feature Elvis in what would be a holiday special, designed to conclude with the King of Rock and Roll crooning Christmas carols.
Luckily for Elvis, producer Bob Finkel convinced his cohorts and presenting sponsor Singer Corporation to green-light a different concept that focused exclusively on Elvis—intended to connect him with younger audiences and refresh the cultural mindset of Elvis as a groundbreaking rock star and not the tired star of corny comedies. Despite expected resistance from Colonel Tom, Elvis was fully on board with Finkel and director Steve Binder’s renewed vision for the special, which was rehearsed, recorded, and produced through June 1968.
It was during this tumultuous month that Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles, just two months after Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis. The King assassination particularly troubled Elvis, who “definitely wanted to say something more with his music than a song like ‘Hound Dog’ could express,” as Peter Guralnick wrote in Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley. “Binder wanted a musical statement based on [Elvis’] conversations about the assassinations and the discord gripping the country,” wrote Donald Liebenson for Vanity Fair on the 50th anniversary of the special. Binder charged songwriter Walter Earl Brown Jr. to craft “the greatest song you’ve ever written,” which Brown did—overnight.
The next day, Brown played “If I Can Dream” for the core members of the production. After Elvis asked Brown to play it at least six times, he simply stated “We’re doing it,” and the special’s finale was determined. Of course, Finkel knew that “the Colonel will blow his stack. It’s got to be a Christmas song,” and even after Colonel Tom’s initial protest that it “ain’t Elvis’ kind of song,” taste prevailed and “If I Can Dream” became the closing number of Singer Presents… Elvis.
Presley’s determination to perform “If I Can Dream” over Colonel Tom’s objections was prominently featured in Elvis, Baz Luhrmann’s flashy biopic that was released in summer 2022, 54 years to the day after the real Elvis recorded “If I Can Dream”. Elvis garnered eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Costume Design, and Best Actor for Austin Butler’s intense portrayal of the King… evidently also igniting the Elvis Cinematic Universe, which continued this year with the release of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla, focused on the singer’s wife. (For more about the 2022 film Elvis, I recommend the reading the informed insights from my friend—and Elvis expert—at Soul Ride Blog.)
As movies do, Elvis takes some historical liberties with the exact retelling of events, depicting the industrious Binder (Dacre Montgomery) and his team keeping a Christmas-sweatered Colonel Tom (Tom Hanks) hoodwinked until the moment that Elvis finally performs the stirring “If I Can Dream” in place of the desired Christmas song. Also according to Elvis, the show was originally to close with “Here Comes Santa Claus”, a jauntier choice than the more moving “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” that Elvis was originally intended to sing.
The film reflects the reality of the ’68 Comeback Special’s impact on Presley’s career, attracting 42% of the television-viewing audience when it aired on the first Tuesday in December 1968 and renewed interest in the King’s music career as he relaunched his live performances. Considered a high water-mark of the singer’s discography, “If I Can Dream” was also a success, as the single was certified Gold in the U.S. and peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
What’d He Wear?
Though Elvis takes some historical liberties with its storytelling, costume designer Catherine Martin and tailor Gloria Bava worked painstakingly to recreate how the King of Rock and Roll dressed on- and off-stage.
The ’68 Comeback Special was Presley’s first collaboration with prolific costume designer Bill Belew, who would be responsible for famously dressing Elvis in the iconic high-collared jumpsuits he frequently wore for performances through the last decade of his life. Introduced by Binder, Presley and Belew met on June 11, 1968 to discuss his handful of costumes for the production, anchored by the tight black leather jacket and trousers that was said to be the singer’s favorite and would be worn for most of the special.
To conclude the special with the stirring “If I Can Dream”, Elvis was dressed by Belew in a trendy but comparatively sober white double-breasted suit that projects the same dramatic hope as Earl Brown’s song. The only color comes from a swath of red silk knotted around his neck—perhaps emblematic of the bloodshed in recent weeks that had called him to the song.
Elvis Presley on the set of his 1968 comeback special.
“The white suit is very meaningful, because that song is a reaction to terrible assassinations that were happening in the late ’60s, terrible time of segregation—the racial violence, the political violence—and I think the white suit was really a plea for a more inclusive and more peaceful solution,” costume designer Catherine Martin explained to The Art of Costume. Martin was deservedly nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her work in Elvis, in which she dressed Austin Butler in at least 90 different costumes that all closely represented the King’s wardrobe.
Left: Elvis photographed in the midst of his “If I Can Dream” performance that concluded the 1968 special.
Right: Austin Butler recreates the moment in Elvis (2022).
From my perspective, the white suit that Gloria Bava tailored for Austin Butler to wear in Elvis is a near-perfect replication of what Bill Belew had designed in June 1968 for the real Presley, from the contemporary cut to the covered buttons. The soft napped cloth may be the same “stretch wool jersey” that Belew told the Elvis Australia fan club he used for some of the comeback special’s suits.
The double-breasted jacket follows a neo-Regency style that was trendy through the late ’60s, characterized by its high 6×3-button configuration and the wide, ulster-like collar (as opposed to conventional peak lapels.) Modern viewers may consider the style comically dated—like a bleached Austin Powers—but it was effective in the moment in communicating that Elvis had kept with the times and was no longer a rockabilly relic of the fabulous fifties.
The six buttons on the front, three on each flared cuff, and the two decorative buttons positioned on the back at the crest of each long vent are all covered in a matching white cloth. The shoulders are padded and the sleeveheads are roped, with front darts and waist suppression shaping the jacket through the torso to accentuate that the King had maintained an athletic build into his 30s. “He had a terrific build at that point,” Belew later confirmed, as shared in the designer’s Los Angeles Times obituary following his death in 2008. The hip pockets slant gently rearward with asymmetrical flaps that flare out toward the back.
The jacket has a flared skirt with squared quarters that totally cover the trouser waistband, particularly with all three buttons fastened. “If I Can Dream” isn’t the traditional Elvis type of song (I’ll concede that much to Colonel Tom) in that there aren’t any appropriate opportunities for Elvis the Pelvis’ notorious gyrations, so we see little of the flat-front trousers other than the straight cut through the legs down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.
Elvis maintains his bleached palette with a pair of white leather ankle boots with side-zip fastening, squared plain toes, and dark brown leather soles. According to BBC, the size-11 boots were made by the Italian fashion label Verde. After the special aired, Elvis gave the boots to his close friend Charlie Hodge, who later provided a letter of provenance when they sold for more than £29,500 to a UK collector in 2015.
Note the tacky Christmas set that would’ve been a jarring backdrop for Elvis’ musical plea for world harmony.
The real Elvis’ actual white boots that he wore with this suit for the 1968 special. (Source: BBC)
Elvis wears a solid white cotton shirt that remains mostly covered throughout the performance, aside from the shaped point collar and the squared ends of the single-button barrel cuffs. As mentioned, his bright red silk neckwear provides the only colorful contrast against the field of white, and this also appears to be the most significant difference between the actual Elvis’ wardrobe and Butler’s costume. The real Elvis’ red tonal-printed silk neckwear was more of a narrow cravat, while Butler’s short bright-red neckwear is of similar style and length but knotted more like a conventional four-in-hand necktie.
As the real Elvis did during the ’68 performance, Butler wears a pair of rings—one on each hand:
- On his right pinky, Elvis wears a gold ring that swells out to a black star sapphire ovular stone, wedged next to a chevron studded with nine diamonds that creates an arrow-like effect. (Gold-plated recreations of this pinky ring can be commissioned from TCB Jewels on eBay.)
- On the ring finger of his left hand, he sports the platinum wedding ring he started wearing after his marriage to Priscilla the previous year, featuring three rows of diamonds across the front. (Sterling silver and crystal-laden recreations of this wedding ring can be commissioned from Elvis Presley Jewelry on eBay.)
By pure luck, the real Elvis’ original white suit was saved from destruction. In 1971, Colonel Tom—in his endless quest for more money in the name of his famous client—demanded that 25 trunks of the King’s personal wardrobe be shipped from Graceland to New York, where he’d have them cut into swathes and sent out with orders of an upcoming album to lucky customers.
According to Elvis Relics, Presley’s ranch manager Mike McGregor spotted the shipment and asked Elvis why so many of his clothing was boxed up. Upon being told of the Colonel’s plan, Mike commented that “that’s a lot of nice clothes going to waste!” so Elvis urged his friend to go through the collection and take what he wanted for himself first.
Luckily for fans of the King, Mike’s taste gravitated toward a trio of outfits designed for and worn during the 1968 comeback special: the black leather jacket and trousers, a burgundy suit, and this white double-breasted suit that Elvis wore while singing “If I Can Dream”, an ensemble that Tim Moffatt included as one of Elvis’ top nine most iconic looks in the retrospective he compiled for Entertainment Weekly ahead of Elvis‘ release in July 2022.
After the 2015 compilation album If I Can Dream was awarded the top spot in the UK’s Official Charts, Priscilla Presley posed with the award in front of the white suit her late ex-husband wore while introducing the song at the end of his 1968 comeback special. (Source: Forbes)
How to Get the Look
Elvis Presley performs “If I Can Dream” for his 1968 comeback special.
You could try to echo the look with a Regency-inspired white suit, white shirt, and red tie. You could even slip into a pair of white boots and dress your hands with a set of diamond-studded rings. But without that signature Elvis swagger, it’s a look best left to the King.
- White wool stretch jersey neo-Regency stage suit:
- Double-breasted 6×3-button jacket with long ulster-style collar, asymmetrical-flapped slanted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and long double vents with 2 decorative back waist buttons
- Flat-front straight-leg trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
- White cotton shirt with shaped point collar and 1-button squared barrel cuffs
- Bright-red silk cravat
- White leather zip-side ankle boots
- Gold pinky ring with black star sapphire stone and diamond-studded chevron arrow
- Diamond-banded platinum wedding ring
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie and the ’68 Comeback Special.
Thank you. Goodnight.
The post Elvis Presley’s White Suit in the ’68 Comeback Special: Reel vs. Real appeared first on BAMF Style.