This Presley Knows How to Survive Public Eye That Never Blinks

R eminiscing with the help of old photographs can be fulfilling, but we’ve all felt that sudden stab of apprehension when we realize that on the next page of the photo album is a picture of us in a granny dress/Earth Shoes/disco polyester/spiky hair/Nehru jacket/Superfly hat. There we sit, mature, tailored and adult, seeing our previous selves revealed as fashion felons.

Learning to be comfortable in our own skins, and in our own choice of clothes, takes time. And if you happen to be squarely in the public eye during this evolution, the process gets even trickier. We talked to one of the most fully evolved of these folks, Priscilla Presley, Wednesday at Planet Hollywood in Santa Ana, where she presented the restaurant with the potter’s wheel she and Leslie Nielsen groped over in “Naked Gun 2 1/2.”

HE: She’s always been a great-looking woman, but with her name forever appended to Elvis’ she’s always seemed a bit unreal to me, by association larger than life. It was a nice surprise to see her as she really is: disarmingly friendly, shorter than life (why are so many Hollywood types always short?), and able to look unimposing even in that outfit she was wearing.

SHE: That outfit was probably the sexiest silhouette Santa Ana has seen: simple Margi Kent black jacket, collar up-turned, front unbuttoned; see-through black turtleneck blouse with a built-in lace bustier, and chaps.

The pants, also by Margi Kent, were beautifully crafted--a snug fitting combination of black suede and Lycra that laced at the waist. From a distance, the lower part of the pants looked like they were transparent. (Up close, you could see it was black suede crisscrossed over a brown fabric.) Presley ensured a tastefully sexy look by downplaying herself . Her blond hair was short and unstructured. Her makeup was very light. Her real nails were done in a simple French manicure. Her only accessory was a man’s 18-karat gold Cartier Panthere watch.

If she’d done a Dolly Parton--outrageous hair and major makeup--she would have looked absurd. Lesson learned: when you’re going for sexy, don’t overdo it.

HE: As she said herself, “The main thing is to be true to yourself and not to emulate someone else. In Hollywood, that’s hard to do.”

Indeed. With casting agents, producers and various hangers-on scurrying all over town looking for a De Niro type and and Streep type, individuality is at a premium.

But, without that outfit of hers (which I imagine was a theatrical touch for the benefit of Planet Hollywood) I wouldn’t have pegged Presley as a film actress. Replace what she wore with jeans and a sweater and she’d still look remarkable, but not necessarily glamorous.

And I got the idea she might have been just as at home in a more casual outfit. She told us about what she called a “marriage” between comfort, good looks and sexiness.

SHE: Yes, always looking “a little sexy” was an appearance requirement, she said.

And she admitted Elvis liked her that way--in simple lines that were form-revealing. “Doesn’t every man?” she asked with a heart-stopping smile.

Well?

HE: I’d hardly call her outfit simple, but sure, most men with eyes in their heads have a finely developed appreciation for the woman who has the good sense and confidence to cover her body in clothes that are designed to give nice, broad hints of what’s underneath.

Self-evaluation is critical, and as Presley unnecessarily said, “I know my body really well.”

She did, however, admit to stumbling a time or two over the years on the road to acquiring a solid sense of fashion.

SHE: Yes, during her Elvis years, Priscilla, who will be 48 in May, said she tried a million looks--one of them being the way her 25-year-old daughter, Lisa, looks now.

“Lisa says everybody compares her to Elvis,” she said. “And Lisa thinks she looks like me. Here she is, doing the ‘60s thing, emulating the time period I started out in. So strange.”

Priscilla wears a light theatrical makeup, M.A.C. lipstick in a pale mauve-bronze shade, a touch of eyeliner and no blush. “In general, women wear too much makeup,” she said. “It literally takes away from a person.” I agree.

HE: For me, it was good to hear someone like her own up to the fact that she’s made a flock of personal fashion errors along the way, just like the rest of us. I don’t think you’d get such a candid admission out of, say, Cher.

SHE: She’s come a long way from her mountain-high hair and raccoon-eye days. Who would have believed someday she’d wear short locks and warn against too much makeup?

But as you mature, you learn less is always more.

I liked her advice to young women: “Be yourself. Don’t try to be anybody else. If you’re not, the person you’re with will wonder: ‘Who am I with?’ ”