"Elvis looked best before he joined the army"

John Rocha is a man who knows his fashion…and his music. Rifle through the CDs nearest to his hi-fi and you’ll find recent albums by U2, Mundy, Paddy Casey and that “gorgeous voiced girl” Gemma Hayes. All of which makes him eminently qualified to comment on Elvis Presley as rock ‘n’ roll style icon.

“Do I like the Presley look?” he inquires. “Not the ‘70s Las Vegas one when he was overweight and dressed in those rhinestone jumpsuits. That was horrible. If I’d only seen that side of him I wouldn’t have been impressed at all. Go further back, though, and he was incredibly handsome and cool. I liked him best before he joined the army. He had that down south, slight Teddy Boy thing going on which I really appreciated! He was true to his roots, yet a bit of a rebel at the same time.

“The measure of a look is whether it endures, and you can see a bit of classic Elvis in so many rock stars, from that Eurythmics girl to Bono.”

Annie Lennox, Tanita Tikarem, Sharleen Spitteri…the boy Presley definitely had the androgynous look that appeals to a lot of women. “Yes, he was handsome but not in an overly-macho way. His mouth, in particular, was quite feminine.”