- Let's begin.
♪ At the very beginning ♪
♪ A very good place to start ♪
[light music]
Hi, I'm Elton John.
You may not have guessed that, but I am.
Here we go.
Ah.
God, I was so young there
and that's probably all I could afford and it shows.
The trousers are very bell-bottomy.
So, it was obviously taken in the late 60s, I would think.
Apparently it was my first publicity shot.
And so, that obviously went down very well.
I don't remember it being publicized anywhere.
I don't recognize me.
I do recognize me, but I'm very, very young
and very, very naive.
And I obviously have no idea what's to come
in the next 50 odd years.
Ah, wherever we went,
we picked up badges and the badges were sewn on
by members of the band's wives.
I remember trying to wear this outfit to Disneyland
and we had special passes and it was so exciting
and I was really happy.
And then we got to Disneyland and they said,
"Oh, you can't come in here with these pudgy badges
on your outfit."
And none of them were really offensive at all.
Now, let me talk about denim for awhile.
I used to wear denim in the early '70s
and I absolutely loathe denim now.
I think every piece of denim in the world should be burnt.
I loathe it, I detest it, cancel it.
Ah, this is tasteful.
This is when I played at my football club,
Watford Football Club, before I became chairman.
I've been a fan of Watford Football Club
ever since I was six years old.
And so, to play a concert at Vicarage Road
where the ground is, was really emotional for me.
And obviously these were the colors of the football team.
The outfit, I don't know who made it.
Probably Annie Reavey.
I look like a Matador
who's just had one drink too many
and stumbled into a concert.
I don't know.
I like the glasses, the glasses are great.
It was a very important day and that outfit
was meant to show my love for the club.
Ah, I remember this.
Las Vegas and there's the fabulous Diana Ross on the right,
and Cher being Cher on the left, and me stuck in the middle.
And my outfit was by Bob Mackie .
Cher's was definitely by Bob Mackie.
I'm not sure about Diana's.
And all three artists are still going strong.
Cher, me, and Diana Ross.
It's a rather lovely photograph for three people
who have remained successful.
As you can see, this was the era of platform shoes.
And obviously I'm looking to buy a new pair of shoes
that day because I don't have any.
And my outfit is so tasteful with those lovely shorts
and the hat and the glasses
with the feathers on them I think, yeah.
I always said if I was a woman,
I would spent all my money on handbags, shoes, accessories
'cause they're just ridiculous.
I mean men's shoes have gotten so good over the years
and they used to be horrible,
but women's accessories are so incredible
and men are catching up now.
I loved my success in the early days and I loved dressing up
and I loved clothes and this is a photograph
of me enjoying my stuff.
And obviously there's a lot of stuff to enjoy.
[light music]
Ah-huh, Hollywood Walk of Fam
when I got my star on Hollywood Boulevard,
which was a lovely day.
I couldn't believe I was getting a star
on Hollywood Boulevard so early in my career.
The suit is Bob Mackie
and I think there's a badge on the star of people
who had already been on the Walk of Fame.
The glasses played a very, very important part in my career
because having been born a little bit myopic,
the glasses that were available in England
were not very good.
When I got to America in 1970
and found this store called Opti Boutique
on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, I went crazy.
I took glasses to a new level with that store.
I got implants.
I don't have to wear glasses,
but I like to wear glasses.
These don't have lenses in them.
And I decided now in association with Walmart
to make an Elton John line of glasses
because a portion of the proceeds go
to the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
And you know, the Bob Mackie outfit is just to die for.
And I wish I had the same waistline now.
Ah, talking of Bob Mackie,
here's the sort of thing you go down to the grocery store
and when you dressed up to come on stage,
you felt you were ready for a show.
And if you weren't ready for a show with this outfit on,
you'll never be ready.
But as part of the British psyche,
you look at Mick Jagger, and you look at Marc Bolan,
and Rod Stewart, and David Bowie,
we all had this desire to come on stage.
And when you put your costume on, you were ready to perform.
I couldn't ever really come on stage and look normal,
or, you know, as normal as one could.
It was me evolving into the mad cap artist that I became.
This outfit, it's one of my favorite outfits of all time.
It's called the giant chicken outfit.
This is the one I wore on "The Muppet Show."
This might be from "The Muppet Show"
'cause I don't normally play a white piano.
So, it was made by Bill Whitten,
who was an incredible LA designer in the early 1970s,
and this was so much fun to wear.
I mean, I used to get feathers in my mouth
when I was singing, and it was so heavy.
And this was reused several times in the film "Kingsmen 2."
And also when I just did a commercial in America
with a Little NAS X and he wore that outfit
and I wore one of his outfits.
But, this was something else.
It was funny.
Never anything like that had been seen before.
I know Bernie Taupin, my lyricist,
wasn't exactly happy about it.
And a lot of people just thought,
why does he have to wear that?
You know, I sat at a piano.
I'm not Mick Jagger.
I'm not Rod Stewart.
I'm not David Bowie.
I don't move around the stage.
I've got to attract attention somehow.
And that was the whole point with me.
I didn't want to repeat myself and I wanted,
as I got more and more famous, to become more outrageous.
I think Cher did the same thing.
We're both kindred spirits in that we just wanted
to get more and more outrageous.
And I think you can say that is outrageous.
[light music]
Ah-huh, leaping forward a lot of years.
This was taken backstage at Earl's Court in London
at a show that I did and that's Princess Diana
and that's me in Johnny Versace.
One of my favorite pictures taken by Richard Young.
I love this picture so much
I have a copy of it in the library
and it was such a great night
and we were having such a great time.
And we went out afterwards.
I loved that outfit so much, it really is great.
And Johnny became, of course, one of my greatest friends,
my clothes really were made by a certain few people
'cause I loved working with them.
This brings back so many great memories and it makes me sad
and it makes me happy at the same time.
Gianni Versace again and Donatella.
Now, I think this was taken
at the opening of a shop, Gianni Versace store in London,
a leather jacket, leather waistcoat, leather trousers.
There's enough leather on there
to make a Chesterfield couch.
Johnny, again, became my best friend.
Donnatella is still one of my best friends.
They're incredibly kind, wonderful people and inspirational.
And two photographs of Diana.
And two now of Gianni Versace outfits
made me realize I lost two incredible friends
in the most tragic way at six weeks apart.
[Elton sighing]
God, I miss him, I just really miss him.
I have a photograph of him next to my bed.
I wish he was still alive.
He was full of love and his clothes were full of vibrant,
beautiful colors, beautifully made.
Gianni's thing was quality, quality, quality, quality.
Okay, what can one say.
This is my 50th birthday.
My outfit was made by Sandy Powell.
I said, I want the biggest wig of all time
and I want a galleon on it with smoke coming out of it.
And she didn't bat an eyelid.
And I said,
I want to look like Louis the 14th on acid.
The tragedy of this is that we were taken to the party,
which was only about should have been five minutes away,
in a furniture lorry because I couldn't get in a car,
but the driver went the wrong way.
He went the long way round
and we got stuck in the traffic going to the party.
So, I was in the van for 45 minutes.
That wig must've weighed 13, 14 pounds.
And it was stuck on with glue, knitting needles,
hair pins, everything.
The wig would go eh and then the other side.
It was like Marge Simpson.
And I was in agony and I was so angry.
We finally reached the Hammersmith Palais
where the party was and they lowered down the van
and I'm going [growling].
And as they saw my face, I went "Hi."
And luckily enough,
I had the good sense to know
there was another outfit waiting for me to change into
with another wig which wasn't so heavy.
I didn't even say hello to anybody as I went in.
And I just went straight upstairs and changed outfits
'cause I was in so much pain.
That's what vanity will do for you.
And vanity nearly killed me that night,
but it is the motherfucker of all outfits.
Ah yes, Gaga and I at the Grammys.
That's an Armani tuxedo that I'm wearing.
It's the only time I've ever worn Armani.
God, I love her.
She's a godmother to our two sons.
She is so great.
I love her to death.
We've had so much fun together.
When she first arrived at my house that you're in now,
she couldn't get through the front door
because her heels were so big
and her hat was too tall and I've got a big front door
and she came on the plane like that.
She has that ability to look so out there
and then look so classic as well.
On her film premieres and when she's doing red carpet,
she looks amazing.
And then she just can look,
she goes to the Met ball and looks like something out of,
you know, from Venus or Mars.
And she's just an inspiration to me.
Oh, Dua Lipa.
What a beautiful woman, another great woman.
Another woman with a fire in her belly.
She was so good, so professional, so glamorous.
I mean, look at that dress.
I think it's a Balenciaga dress, I'm not sure.
And look at those areas, look at the hair,
look at everything.
I'm wearing a Gucci jacket, which is nice.
And then because of that meeting,
we got to be friends and she got to sing
on a record called "Cold Heart,"
which has been probably one of my biggest singles
in my whole life, a very special day.
And she's a very special woman.
This was in Paris and Charlie Puth did this song.
We did another track
from "The Lockdown Sessions" called "After All."
And this is a Gucci suit they made for me
for the occasion with a beautiful cotton shirt.
And this was the first thing I'd done really performing-wise
since March the 7th in 2020 in Australia.
So, it was lovely to play in front of about 50,000 people
and hear applause again because I hadn't had that.
Nobody had had it.
So, I'm hoping that when I go back
on the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour,
that's gonna inspire me
because I've kind of got used to not going on the road.
After the Elton John AIDS Foundation after party,
David and I went to Vanity Fair
and we saw Jared Leto who we knew.
And then he introduced me to Alexandra
and I was already wearing Alexandra's clothes.
And so, we became instant friends.
He came down here to the house,
looked through my whole wardrobe from the 1970s onwards
and did an Elton John capsule collection for Gucci.
He's the closest thing to Gianni Versace
that I've ever come across.
Clothes designers, I think when you wear their clothes,
they become part of you and they become your friends.
Richard James is the same.
And that's why I like to have relationships with designers
because you get to know them,
they get to know you, and you have fun with them.
Every designer I've ever worked with,
I've had so much fun with,
and I've never asked him to make me something special.
It's always what they want.
You know, it's their idea.
And I either say yay or nay.
But usually I say, yes.
God, that you could have included so many more photographs,
but we'd be here for another three years looking
at what I've worn.
Do I regret any of it?
Not really.
There's some clunkers, but there always is.
I mean, I'm surprised that Donald Duck outfit
wasn't in here, but again, it was Bob Mackie thinking,
all right, you're gonna be Donald duck.
And I went, "Oh fine, great, lovely."
I disaster, but fun disaster.
But throughout my career,
clothes have been so many important.
Without that process of dressing up
and looking different and having fun.
I would never have been the artist that I became, never.
Okay, that was my life in looks.
I hope you're not crippled with laughter by now,
but I enjoyed it.
[light music]
Voila.
[light music]