 The creator of the glorious
"Burning Flame of Love" and other sartorial extravaganzas
recalls what it was like to design costumes for the messiah of
Memphis
By Mike Thomas| Part 2 |
If the songs don't go over, we can do a medley of costumes."
Elvis Presley, in concert at the International Hotel, Las
Vegas, August 1970
Some months ago, Rick Lenzi, a California mechanic and part-time
Elvis impersonator, was invited to flex his pork chops on "Your
Big Break," a spiffed-up, non-lip sync version of the '80s
variety show, "Puttin' On the Hits." The program's contestants,
who mimic their favorite singers, are aided in their
metamorphoses by a small staff of professional costume
designers.
Upon arriving in Burbank, Calif.,
for taping, Lenzi learned that his transformation would be
presided over by a man named Bill Belew. At first, the name had
merely a familiar ring. Then it clicked. "You're not the
Bill Belew, are you?" Lenzi asked incredulously, almost
reverently, when the two met. "Yes, I am,"
Belew said.
Lenzi's jaw dropped -- he knew,
as any diehard Elvis maven would, that Belew wasn't just any
costume designer. He was, in fact,
Elvis
Presley's costume designer and personal fashion guru for
nearly a decade. "I was in awe," Lenzi recalls.
The Belew-Presley union began in 1968, when the producers of
Presley's NBC "comeback" special, "Elvis," who'd worked
previously with Belew on a Petula Clark production, invited the
designer to create some hip threads for the now-legendary
program that would herald the swivel-hipped one's second coming.
When asked what "look" he envisioned for Elvis, Belew claims he
knew almost immediately. "It always seemed like people assumed
he wore black leather," he says, "but he never did. He may have
worn a leather jacket, but that's about it. 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." And
so the cowhide was procured and fashioned and fitted, then
later, after the second stand-up show, pried by Belew with much
difficulty from Elvis' sweat-soaked body.
If
clothes make the man, then Belew's clothes made The Man -- made
him sultrier, flashier, manlier. Following the success of the
NBC special, which reinvented Elvis not only musically, but
physically, Belew realized what promise there was in this
alliance. "He was a great person to dress," Belew says. "He had
a terrific build at that point . . . [But] at the time we
started in Vegas, everything was Liberace. And I would see these
outlandish things with fur and feathers and think, 'That's not
going to be Elvis. And if that's what he wants, he can get
somebody else.' I wanted the clothes to be easy and seductive
and that was it. And I never wanted anything to compromise his
masculinity."
Of course, as Elvis' popularity
grew, so did his fans' unconditional love. Consequently, Belew
felt he had more freedom to produce increasingly intricate and
outrageous designs.
"I kept most of his things very simple in the early days,"
Belew says.
"We just watched the reaction from the fans, and
that's how we began to get more elaborate."
In August 1970, when Elvis stormed Sin City for a triumphant
stand at the International Hotel, Belew hunkered amid the
capacity crowd, gauging its response to the conch-shell-studded,
macramé-adorned, karate-style jumpsuit that Elvis worked
expertly as though it were a second skin. Needless to note, it,
and Elvis, went over big. Proclaimed a friend of Belew's during
the show, "He's like a panther stalking that stage, exuding
sexuality."
Almost from the start there had
been an unusual level of trust and familiarity between the two.
To Elvis, Belew was never Bill, but Billy, and most of his
designs were approved on sight, something that shocked and
delighted Belew. In part, the fast fraternity stemmed from a
shared sense of lineage, as both men were reared in the south --
Elvis in Tupelo, Miss., and Memphis, Tenn.; Belew in
Charlottesville, Va. -- by doting, plump ("big-boned,"
euphemizes Belew) matriarchs with a penchant for all things
culinary.
In subsequent years, as Belew's
loyalty and talent continued to impress his employer, he became
Elvis' personal fashion designer (often spending upwards of
$15,000 a month on custom clothing) and confidante. Elvis even
bestowed upon him a coveted gold
diamond-and-lightening-bolt-festooned "TCB" (Taking Care of
Business in a Flash) necklace that was proffered to all the
King's men, a small inner circle often dubbed the "Memphis
mafia." Says Belew, "I thought, 'Oh, shit, I really have come
into it now!'"
As the years passed and Elvis'
career entered its high renaissance, Belew, though not under
exclusive contract to Presley, was always on hand to conjure up
eminently memorable stage outfits, including the fiery,
Japanese-inspired "Red Dragon" jumpsuit, the "Burning Flame of
Love" and the showy powder-blue number that Elvis wore during
his 15-city U.S. tour in 1972.
But perhaps the
most memorable get-up of all was the one Elvis sported for his
fabled "Aloha
from Hawaii" worldwide telecast in 1973. Not only was the
outfit white, as they all would be subsequently (white was
easier to light), and grandiose and profusely adorned with all
sorts of fabulously gaudy trinkets, but its finishing touch was
one that would be forever allied with Elvisian lore: The Cape.
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