“Put on more makeup,” “no brown dresses”: this is how Sofía Coppola relates the toxic relationship between Elvis and Priscilla through clothes

Germany, 1960. A fifteen-year-old Priscilla (played by Cailee Spaeny) stares into space lying on the bed in a room appropriate to her age and time: flower wallpaper on the walls, cherry-colored nail polish, a glass jewelry box in the shape heart, clippings from fashion magazines and a small porcelain tea set.

She only differs by one detail on the wall;

the military jacket that Elvis Presley wore during his years of military service in West Germany, witness to the romance that Priscilla and the king of rock had months ago.

With this prop more typical of a Pinterest board than fiction, Sofia Coppola quenches the thirst of her fans in the first minutes of the biopic

Priscilla

.

Released in Spain on February 14, Valentine's Day, narrates the years of relationship between Priscilla and Elvis Presley from their first meeting in Europe until their separation, with a script based on the memoirs

Elvis and Yo Me

(1985) by Priscilla Beaulieu, also producer of the film.

Cailee Spaeny, Sofia Coppola's 'Priscilla', as a teenager in Germany.

Courtesy of A24.

That almost obsessive preciousness that her films pose with the camera as a constant still photo, is already an unmistakable (and expected) hallmark of Sofia Coppola since she became, with the footage of

Virgin Suicides

, a symbol of the term

'aesthetic'

that triumphs on TikTok, decades before this social network existed.

And in which his detailed universe, based on grading faithful to William Eggleston (Coppola cites the photographer's work as an absolute reference for his work), sugary songs from the past (from Brenda Lee to Tommy James & The Shondells through the version of

Baby I Love,

by Ramones) and very, very slow shots, the costumes are another tool with which to build the emotional side of the character.

Only Coppola is capable of bringing any historical period he wants into his territory: it was the pearly Gothic that surrounds the Civil War in

The Beligued (2017), the candidness of the

kinderwhore

dresses

in

Virgin Suicides

(1999), the twist punk of

Marie Antoinette

(2006) or the logomania of

The Bling Ring

(2013).

But let's go back to the days of waiting in Germany.

Against the universe of pastel colors and flourishes that reign in the room, Priscilla's clothing, with the exception of a choker with a heart that she wears throughout the film (available in the official merchandising launched by the production company A24) and a Bulova watch that Elvis gave him, he is limited to boring clothes in dull tones, in contrast to what the fashion magazines dictate in that consumerist America to which he fantasizes returning to be reunited with his love.

“Priscilla is sad in Germany, while the sun rises in Memphis,” were the instructions that Coppola gave to Stacey Battat when she proposed the emotions that should be conveyed in her costume design.

With this premise, the designer and Coppola's collaborator since her first work in

Somewhere

(2010), tells

S Moda

how each garment worn by the character, from her adolescence to her last days at Graceland, plays a decisive role in the set-up of Priscilla in fiction.

“When Priscilla was young and in Germany I wanted to dress her in fuller skirts and puffy crinolines to highlight her childish silhouette.

The same thing happens as she grows;

I worked with styles of the time such as straight and pencil skirts that managed to enhance her position in the story.

“I wanted to make sure that change was well understood through the clothes.”

Color, explains Battat, was a determining element to reinforce both a historical moment and a vital one of the protagonist.

While in Germany Priscilla limits herself to wearing grayish colors and pastel pinks, an indication of her age and mood, “when we get to Memphis those colors become more saturated and go from pink to coral and yellow, a contrast of youth.” and how innocent she was at the beginning and how she becomes her [Elvis's] ideal until finally finding herself," Battat told a newspaper days after its premiere.

A wardrobe that reflects Coppola's poetic description of his coming of age.

Crop top and full polka dot skirt: this is Priscilla's triumphant entry into Las Vegas and into her new life.

When planning the costumes, he remained faithful to the styles of each era through exhaustive documentation work.

“I looked at a lot of photos of Elvis and Priscilla, I consulted the textile library at the MET [Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York] to see the fabrics of the period, and I looked through a lot of magazines,” he confesses.

The result of this search arose, for example, the set with a wide, flared 50s-style skirt with the matching polka dot crop-top that Priscilla wears at her triumphant entrance to Las Vegas.

“I saw a similar model like that in a

Vogue

magazine of the time and I was very surprised, it is daring for it to be from 1962. I thought it would be fantastic to reflect with this type of look that moment in which a young woman of her age tries new things, like traveling to Las Vegas for the first time,” Battat said in a recent interview.

More than 120 garments and accessories inspired by different periods in which the film takes place, from the New Look silhouette of the 1950s to the airy maxi dresses that swept at the beginning of the 1970s when the couple separated, articulate the wardrobe of a Priscilla who he grows in sophistication and complexity just like his own person.

Most of the clothes, Battat explains, were custom-made instead of vintage pieces for one simple reason: “When you try to be specific, it is more efficient to create the clothes than to find them, you don't always find what you want and from the From an economic point of view it is also more acceptable.”

Excessive backcombing, black dye and false eyelashes accompany Priscilla's character, even on the day her water breaks.

Courtesy of A24.

Although the film features some original models that Priscilla wore in those years – a baby pink dress and the suit she wears at Elvis' farewell in Germany – Beaulieu was not involved in the costumes.

It was Coppola who pulled the strings by landing the aesthetics that accompanies each character, to such an extent that Stacey confesses that she has not read Priscilla's biography so as not to be influenced.

“The important thing is to visually develop the character, which is why I wanted to remain faithful to the script and not be conditioned by what the book said.

My intention was always to interpret Priscilla's closet rather than recreate it.

There are big gaps in the photographic references and this film is about her private lives, which is the undocumented part, so it was important to imagine what she was like.”

This is the case of the bedroom scenes that the protagonists experience (Coppola's favorite place, as already reflected in the communal beds of

Virgin Suicides, Lost In Traslation

or

The Seduction

), the most

destroyer

evenings (another classic of his, like the rococo bacchanal by

Marie Antoinette

) or visits to the hairdresser, where Battat let himself be carried away by his intuition, taking certain creative liberties to influence the emotion of the character.

The reality and fiction of the same moment: the wedding of Priscilla and Elvis in 1967. GETTY IMAGES Y 024.

An exception is the wedding wardrobe, perhaps the couple's most famous in real life after traveling around the world in May 1967. Battat confesses that he never saw the original design in person when planning the wedding dress. in fiction with the Chanel brand, but he recreated it to the millimeter from photographs.

“I looked at some of Virgine's [Viard, current creative director of Chanel] collections to find the lace I wanted to use for the Chanel team to work on,” she explains.

Valentino made the groom's suit, also a replica of the original, and it has a label with Elvis's name attached to the inside of the jacket along with that of the Italian brand.

“It was a dream to work with Valentino,” says Battat.

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However, it is the uniform that Priscilla wears to Memphis Catholic School that is her favorite outfit in the entire film.

“We made them based on the original from Immaculate Conception High School.

It was important that this uniform look childish [hence the use of a fuller skirt].

“I love that the color green is otherworldly but the garment itself is as common and ordinary as the experiences that Priscilla is living,” she explains on her Instagram account, referring to the act of graduating, experiencing love or simply growing up. .

Priscilla may have lived a glamorous life at night with lots of hairspray and eyeliner, but during the day, she had to dress like everyone else.

“Priscilla is a normal girl, but she lives an extraordinary life.”

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The costumes designed by Battat also reinforce the narrative thread that delves into the toxicity of the relationship, the same one that led to Priscilla's breakup and departure.

Among so many false eyelashes, nail polish and sixties glitter, the New York filmmaker's film is a plea against the abuse that Priscilla declared she experienced during the relationship, both infidelities and physical and psychological abuse, initiation into drug use or humiliations in privacy. of your home.

“No wearing brown, it reminds me of the army”, “put your hair black and wear more makeup”, or “don't wear prints” are some of the orders with which, as the film reveals, Elvis wanted to shape his wife. as if it were a doll.

Data that reveals a much darker and toxic side of the artist.

Battat took this into account, and participated closely in the striking transformation that the character undergoes, through a hairstyle with a dizzying backcomb and the excess of a

cat eye

created by the British makeup artist Jo-Ann MacNeil, nominated for a Critic's Choice for this work.

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A post shared by Alan Millar (@millaralan)

Aesthetics, however, also serve as revenge when the relationship ends.

That's when she appears without makeup, with her hair in her natural color, a simple shirt and pants, leaving all the glamor behind.

“You have everything a woman would want to have,” Elvis blurts out without understanding anything.

Everything, except the most important thing: “I leave you to live my own life,” says Priscilla.