‘It’s Elvis’s fantasy’: how fashion lies at the heart of Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla

Priscilla Presley, played by Cailee Spaeny, is portrayed by Coppola as a woman struggling to assert her identity. Photograph: Sabrina Lantos

Before Kim and Kanye, Posh and Becks or Britney and Justin, there was Elvis and Priscilla.

Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s Hollywood biopic – an official selection at the Venice film festival and soon to be released in the UK – tells the story of the first couple of 1960s America from the young Mrs Presley’s perspective. Priscilla Beaulieu, a 14-year-old schoolgirl when she met Elvis, spent the early years of their relationship partying with the most famous man in the US at night before putting on her uniform to attend Catholic high school during the day.