STITCH LENGTH

Long before Levi’s Engineered garments started playing around with proportions, and fiddling with the long-established Levi’s genetic traits, Elvis Presley’s prison denim from the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock took some artistic liberties with ‘stitch length’.

Clearly a stylised cinematic rendition of prison blues, they break the rules of stitch length, determined by how many stitches per inch, often an indicator of the quality of a garment. The more stitches, generally the higher the quality, ‘needlepoint’ stitched shirts are a prime example of this.

The King’s outfit actually appears to be black, not blue, with thick white long donkey stitches either painted or printed on, they make for a striking visual suit on screen, especially when gyrating around the cell block. As one wants to do.