‘Priscilla’ costume designer reveals movie tells how Elvis wanted ‘whore in bedroom and lady in the living room’

The ‘Priscilla’ costume designer says the movie tells the story of Elvis wanting a “whore in the bedroom” but a “lady in the living room”.

Stacey Battat, 47, put together an array of more than 100 outfits for Cailee Spaeny, 26, who plays Elvis Presley’s wife Priscilla in Sofia Coppola’s critically-acclaimed biopic of the singer, and said the outfits reflected Elvis’ obsession with moulding her in his ideal image of how a wife should look.

She told The Guardian: “Clothes are such an important part of storytelling. “Costume design has historically been underappreciated in Hollywood, connected to the fact that it has usually been a woman’s job in a man’s industry. “But Sofia values what costumes can bring to character development.

“You know that saying – you want a whore in the bedroom, a lady in the living room? That was Elvis.

“Priscilla was his ideal woman, and he wanted to keep her pristine. Sexually, he went with different women altogether.”

Stacey added: “The Priscilla you see on screen is Elvis’ fantasy of who she is. “He had a very clear image of his ideal woman, and he projected that on to Priscilla. She lives like a queen, but he has all the power.”

Sofia, 52, has described her screenplay, based on Priscilla’s 1985 memoir ‘Elvis and Me’, as a love story, but the movie has a deep dark side that shows how one of the ways in which Elvis controlled Priscilla was by stifling her sexuality and insisting his wife retain her virginal, young look.

It also shows how he refused to have sex with her after their daughter was conceived.

Stacey created 120 looks worn by Priscilla, with the film spanning 13 years.

She added: “The silhouette is super important in giving a sense of that timeline. “For the first part of the film, (Priscilla is) wearing a crinoline under her pleated skirts. Women still wear pleated skirts now – what makes a pleated skirt look like the 1950s is having that fullness from a crinoline worn underneath.”

Priscilla Beaulieu was a 14-year-old schoolgirl when she met Elvis and she spent the early years of their relationship partying with the most famous man on the planet while still at school, before they married when she was 21 and the singer was 32.

In one scene in Sofia’s movie, Elvis tells his wife about her clothes: “That dress doesn’t suit you. You’re a small girl. You’ve gotta keep away from the prints, baby.”

He then buys her a baby-blue frock dress and tells her that she can’t wear brown as it reminds him of his time in the army.