'Elvis's fantasy'

Why fashion is key to Coppola's Priscilla biopic

- Jess Cartner-Morley

Before Kim and Kanye, before Posh and Becks, before Britney and Justin, there was Elvis and Priscilla.

Priscilla, Sofia Coppola's Hollywood biopic, an official selection at the Venice film festival and soon to be released in the UK, tells the story of the first couple of 1960s America from the young Mrs Presley's perspective.

Priscilla Beaulieu, a 14-year-old schoolgirl when she met Elvis, spent the early years of their relationship partying with the most famous man in the US at night, before putting on her uniform to attend a Roman Catholic high school during the day.

A stark cinematic portrait of an uneven marriage shows how Elvis used fashion as a tool to control Priscilla, moulding his wife into a feminine mirror image of himself to craft their public image as a perfect couple.

Priscilla's light brown hair, first seen in a ponytail, is dyed black at Elvis's direction to match his own. Next, it is piled into a beehive that echoes the height of his signature quiff.

"That dress doesn't suit you," Elvis tells Priscilla coldly when she chooses an understated earth-toned outfit in a boutique.

"You're a small girl. You've gotta keep away from the prints, baby." He buys her a baby-blue, wasp-waisted dress, telling her that she can't wear brown because it reminds him of the army.

As the wife of a global heartthrob, Priscilla Presley was envied by millions, but the film depicts her as a woman struggling to assert her identity.

Coppola has described her screenplay, based on Priscilla's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, as a love story. Priscilla Presley has praised the film, describing it as "right on" in accuracy. But Elvis's estate, Elvis Presley Enterprises, turned down Coppola's request for music rights, with the result that no Elvis songs appear on the soundtrack.