Catherine Martin on Bringing Elvis' 'Punky Sexual Energy' to Her Costumes

The Oscar-winning filmmaker Catherine Martin – who received three further Academy Award nominations for Best Production and Costume Design, and Best Picture for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis – explains how she channelled the King's spirit through his maximalist wardrobe.

Few people know the minutiae of Elvis Presley’s life quite like Catherine Martin. The Australian costume and production designer spent years researching every fibre of his world in preparation for Baz Luhrmann’s richly detailed film. The filmmaker, Martin’s long-term collaborator and husband, wanted to create something as unique as Elvis was. A star who never had a stylist and who suffered crippling stage fright, yet rose to become one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century, had, as Martin notes, ‘an innate sense of who he wanted to be as a performer’. She adds that ‘the areas where he displayed total confidence were his musicality and his clothes’. Martin’s role in recreating Presley’s life was attuned to finding a unique perspective on it – to ‘interpret, not imitate’. It was about taking the imagery fans would recognise and transposing it into a story some might know less about.

Elvis (2022)

‘People didn’t know Elvis was going to be an enormous star, so the documentation [on him in] the 1950s is a little bit less extensive,’ Martin says of the decade in which Presley rose to fame. ‘The Elvis style that defines the Fifties in our minds for men’s clothing has become so ubiquitous, and a symbol of sartorial elegance, that it has lost its effectiveness in describing the rebel stature of Elvis, and his punky sexual nature.’ Sexuality plays a major part in steering the film’s design and acknowledges an ambiguity in the singer’s stage persona. ‘The line between Elvis’ jumpsuits and something that Liberace would wear – something very camp – is blurred. But when Elvis wears it, it makes him even more masculine,’ Martin notes. And she identifies his legacy in modern performers. ‘People find androgyny really attractive. If you look at every K-pop band, if you look at virtually every teen idol, there is something slightly androgynous [about them]. They’re playing with what is perceived as a gender role.

The bejewelled jumpsuits Elvis wore – be they soft baby-blue cotton or tough black leather – played a key role in defining his public persona and are essential to the film. ‘We needed beautiful ones that were made just for close-ups, ones we were happy to trash with all of that energetic dancing and rolling on the stage, some that just looked great from behind and were fitted perfectly so that when Elvis was walking on stage, you got that heroic shape. But then for moving, that needed to be altered as well because he needed to get his arms up over his head.’ In total? It was approximately 26 different jumpsuits, and then at least two of each. For the white jumpsuit? There were eight. ‘We did change the historical order sometimes in which the jumpsuits appeared in his career, to help to underline the gestalt of the story,’ Martin explains. ‘I wanted to lean into images that hooked the audience into recognisable Elvis moments: this idea of a god in a white jumpsuit.’

Elvis (2022)

Many considerations around comfort and movement came into play for Martin, having to figure out how Elvis could be Elvis – a living, breathing, wiggling Elvis, in these otherwise glamorous looks. It fits with Martin’s ethos to follow the truth in everything she does. If it couldn’t happen in real life, it can’t happen on film. ‘I always have to be able to imagine and have a logic as to how those things got there,’ she says of her design ideas. ‘The important thing is to always be true to the world. What would they have on their desk? What choices would they make?’ It’s no surprise that with this level of care and precision, Martin remains one of the few people to have won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design in the same year, twice now, for the 19th-century French fantasy of Moulin Rouge! (2001) and The Great Gatsby’s roaring, Jazz Age style in 2014. Could Elvis make it a hattrick?