Elvis Presley became such a sensation in 1956 that fans did more than buy his records. His face appeared on an explosion of merchandise aimed at teenagers, including jewelry, clothing, stationery and even cosmetics. Graceland’s own history of the period specifically lists lipstick among the Elvis souvenirs that began appearing as his fame exploded across America.
The lipstick may have been one of the strangest products of all. Fans could choose from shades with Elvis-inspired names including “Hound Dog Orange,” “Heartbreak Pink,” “Love Ya Fuchsia,” “Tutti Frutti Red,” “Tender Pink” and “Cruel Red.” Even the packaging leaned heavily into Elvis mania with the playful message, “Keep me always on your lips.”
Elvis Presley Lipsticks From 1956
The product made perfect sense for the kind of fandom surrounding Elvis at the time. His young female fans were becoming famous for screaming at concerts and expressing their devotion in increasingly visible ways. Stories and surviving photographs even show Elvis’s cars covered with messages and phone numbers written in lipstick. Suddenly, selling lipstick with Elvis’s name attached turned that fan behavior into merchandise.
It was also part of something much bigger. Elvis merchandising took off during 1956 as his television appearances, records and increasingly controversial stage movements turned the 21-year-old singer into a national phenomenon. Graceland records that this was the year Elvis souvenir merchandising truly began, with everything from stuffed hound dogs to sweaters carrying his image or name.
The Original Elvis Presley Merchandise From 1956
That makes this second video a natural continuation. Rather than focusing only on the lipstick, it looks at the first wave of Elvis Presley Enterprises merchandise from 1956, including some of the unusual products created while Elvis mania was still brand new. It shows just how quickly a young singer from Memphis had become not only a recording star but a full cultural brand.
Elvis Presley would eventually sell records around the world, star in Hollywood movies and become one of the defining performers in popular music. Yet something as simple as a tube of “Hound Dog Orange” lipstick shows how intense his fame had already become in 1956. Fans did not just want to hear Elvis. They wanted pieces of him in their everyday lives. Watch the videos to see the unusual lipstick and discover just how far Elvis merchandise went when the King first took America by storm.