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White Concha
Las Vegas, Season 3 – 58 Shows – August 10th – September 3rd 1970

 

White Concha suit is a one-colored rough, white suit with "concha" - a Mexican word for metal rings. There are 85 big metal rings around the chest opening, around the collar and on the back of the sleeves and also on the outside of the legs. Strips of white fabric were threaded through those rings.

 

The belt is white macramé with 23 metal rings, and as usual it was tied on Elvis' left side with fringes all the way down to the middle of his leg. This outfit can also be seen on the cover of the LP That's The Way It Is. In the movie you can also see that the collar is about to go flat possibly because of the pressure from the metal rings. Elvis wore the outfit for the first time on August 11th 1970, at the dinner show. It is also used in the dinner show the next day and several times later this season.

 

There are rumors that Elvis had two or three identical White Concha suits and the fact that there are two known belts. One is located in Hard Rock Café in Malta, which they bought on auction October 7th 1995. The other is located on Hard Rock Café in Kuwait and this belt has only 11 metal rings. Elvis probably wore the second version of this suit in Las Vegas January/February 1971, sometimes with the belt Elvis was given by the hotel in 1969 - The Gold Attendance belt. One of the suits has been on display at Graceland and hopefully the other suit is in their archives as well.

   

 

Known Concert Dates wearing this suit:

 

Date

Venue

Location

Showtime

Crowd

Belt

Musicians

11/08/1970

International Hotel

Las Vegas, Nevada

08:15 p.m.

2.200

Original Belt

 

12/08/1970

International Hotel

Las Vegas, Nevada

08:15 p.m.

2.200

Original Belt

 

26/07/1971

Sahara Hotel

Lale Tahoe, Nevada

00:00 a.m.

 

Gold Attendance Belt

 

 

Sources:

Elvis Presley, Fashion for a King, by Tommy Edwardsen and Atle S. Larsen (Follow That Dream)

Elvis – The Concert Years – 1969-1977, by Stein Erik Skar

Elvis Presley in Concert, TCB World websites and others.

Gallery:
 

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