One of the most iconic outfits that Elvis wore throughout his career was the gold lamé suit, designed by Nudie Cohn in 1957. This outfit included the jacket, pants, shoes, tie, and belt.
Elvis first wore this suit on stage in Chicago on March 28, 1957 and only wore the full lamé suit in three performances: in Chicago on March 28; in St. Louis, Missouri, on March 29; and in Toronto, Canada, on April 2.
At the April 2, 1957 performance in Toronto, Elvis donned his full gold lamé suit for the last time.
At the concert on April 3 in Ottawa, we see that Elvis has already worn only three elements of the golden suit: jacket, belt and shoes. Elvis has already decided not to wear the tie and pants.
On Elvis’ next tour of the Pacific Northwest in late summer, he too would discard the shoes.
As we know, Elvis was not comfortable in this suit. He stopped using the pants immediately, since they were very uncomfortable for him and he could not move freely with them, since they broke, with his wild movements, very easily and conditioned his way of moving. Whereupon he replaced them with black pants…
Elvis’ famous gold lamé suit was designed by Nudie Cohn, who made thousands of brilliant works of art for artists during his career.
Designer Nudie Cohn, born in 1902, was an American tailor who designed ornate, highly conspicuous costumes covered in rhinestones. They were popularly known as “Nudie Suits”.
Nudie Cohn started his business with a loan from Tex Williams, who auctioned off a horse to pay for his sewing machine. The country-western musician was the first of many to dress the designer.
He designed outfits for many of the most famous celebrities of his day.
John Wayne, Hank Snow, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, Elton John, Cher Robert Mitchum, Tony Curtis, Michael Landon, Glen Campbell, and an endless etcetera, until his death in 1984.
Many of his designs became exclusive looks for his owners. Among his most famous creations is Elvis’ $10,000 gold lamé suit.
The suit became very famous on the cover of his LP “50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong. Elvis Golden Record Volume 2”. A cover, the design of which had strong influences on numerous later covers.
Jamie Nudie, the designer’s granddaughter, tells us how the idea for this suit came about: “One day in 1957, Colonel Tom Parker came up to my grandfather and said, ”I’ve got this new kid, Elvis Presley. I want to to do something spectacular for him, something that’s never been done before…” Jamie tells us as he looks up at Elvis’ gold lamé suit, which then cost $10,000 and is now on display at Graceland.
A suit that was immortalized next to the image of Elvis, forever.
By clicking on the link of the following video, you can see an impressive Elvis live, in Hawaii in 1957, wearing the Golden Lamé jacket:
