Clothier gave Elvis sartorial sexiness
‘ I put his first suit on him and his last suit on him,’ Memphis retailer Bernard Lansky was fond of saying
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Bernard Lansky, the Memphis retailer who helped a young Elvis Presley establish his signature clothing style of pegged pants, two- toned shoes and other flashy duds in the 1950s, has died. He was 85.
Julie Lansky, the clothier’s granddaughter, said he died Thursday at his Memphis home.
Lansky started his retail business in Memphis in 1946 with a $ 125 loan from his father, Samuel.
After the Second World War, the store started selling army surplus goods on Beale Street. When the supply dried up, he opened a high- fashion men’s store, where he established his reputation as a natural salesman and storyteller.
“It’s a statement to say that he dressed one of the most influential entertainers of all time,” Julie Lansky said in a telephone interview. “He knew that for any entertainer, they had to look different.”
Even though his style of dress changed over the years — including sparkling jumpsuits — Presley shopped at Lansky Bros. the rest of his life. Presley died at his Memphis residence, Graceland, in 1977.
Lansky picked out the white suit and blue tie that Presley wore when he was buried.
“I put his first suit on him and his last suit on him,” Lansky was fond of saying.
By the early 1950s, Lansky’s shop was known as a place where a man with a taste for flash could find the styles Lansky referred to as “real sharp.”
At the time, Beale Street was a hot spot for blues, rhythm and blues and jazz, and drew a colourful parade of musicians, gamblers and hustlers from the Mississippi Delta.
Presley began hanging around Beale Street as a teenager and picked up quickly on its music.
One of Lansky’s favourite Elvis stories was how he first met the future King of Rock ‘ n’ Roll. Presley was a teenager working as an usher at a nearby theatre and liked to window shop at Lansky’s.
“He said, ‘ When I get rich, I’m going to buy you out,’” Lansky said in a standard version of the story. “I said, ‘ Don’t buy me out. Just buy from me.’ And he never forgot me.”
Presley made his first record, That’s All Right, at the old Sun Studio in 1954. Before long, Presley’s star was rising, and he began shopping at Lansky Bros. in earnest.
Although the Lansky brothers ran the store together, Bernard insisted on waiting on Presley personally. He eventually bought out brother Hal.
Lansky often opened the store at night so Presley could avoid drawing crowds and took outfits to Graceland for him to check out. Lansky dressed him for the Louisiana Hayride and his first TV spots on the Tommy Dorsey and Ed Sullivan shows.
Lansky continued working past the age that most people retire.
“What am I going to retire for? What am I going to do?” he said at age 77, in June 2004. “I get here every morning at 6 o’clock, seven days a week.”