Elvis and fashion are a great combination, Elvis followed his own taste and style and got away with it. Some of the (jump)suits even look cool today. So can you trust Elvis to be your fashion consultant?
Design
This book is a cardboard book with twelve one-sided cardboard pages inside; all containing colorized cutout images of our man against a flashy background.
Content
When news of this book came out I first thought it would be a nice book on Elvis’ fashion. When the details became clear a couple of days later I got a few doubts. Now I have the book in my hands and the doubts were confirmed. The use of the term “book” is a bit overkill for this release. It contains twelve images – all from the fifties and sixties - of our man in various sets of clothing, including a pair of bathing trunks.
I expected a set of clothes and various images of our man in his underwear in need of some flashy clothes. But (unfortunately for the lady fans) Elvis comes already dressed like - a sharp dressed man - waiting to be punched out and set on a standard for display.
It is a fun book for my baby girl, but I don’t see grown-up Elvis fans “playing” with this … ehh actually I do see part of Elvis’ fan base reading this book” ? Even I played with it, one of the images ended up as a wallpaper.
Conclusion
You can punch out the various images and set them on your dressing cabinet for inspiration when you pick out your clothes for the day. I’ll leave the punching out to my baby girl, you can’t be too young to get in touch with some good music. And I even know which album will be playing, “Elvis sings for children and grownups too" the perfect soundtrack for this book.
Ooh goody! I can read this while I'm dressing my Action Man in a jumpsuit, wearing my TCB shades and listening to Spankykock's album of disco favourites. It's the tops in pops for the younger set. The toppermost and the poppermost.
I'm not surprised at all if a large part of the Elvis-fanbase might actually like it. What's the difference with remixes and impersonators?
Well, Lex, for one I don't like either of them. They are scavengers for me. If it helps people get to know the real Elvis, that is their good luck but I seriously doubt it.
Hello, fellow Elvis fans! As the co-creator of this book, let me assure you that it is an officially licensed product from Graceland. We are serious Elvis fans, having been to Graceland, seen every movie multiple times, and having lost many household surfaces to Elvis memorabilia. The book is designed to be fun, and tounge-in-cheek: it contains some images previously only seen in black-and-white, colorized to complete historical accuracy and approved by Graceland, coupled with funny captions on when you might wear such an outfit yourself. They are not really designed to be "played" with- rather to be stood on your desk or car dashboard, hung from your Christmas tree or the ceiling over babies crib, etc. The book follows on the sparkling heels of "Liberace, Your Personal Fashion Consultant" which was adored by fans and purchased by adults. The point is, it is intended to be kitschy, not serious- so if you want to take it literally and give it to your child, great! But if you want to covet the fantastic images of Elvis for yourself, nobody will think strangely of you- the book was a labor of love by real Elvis fans (my wife and I). We sincerely hope the fans love it. God bless. Warmly, Michael Feder
