50s Rock Legend Costume: The Pompadour, the Suit and the Detail That Sells the Stage Look

A 1950s rock and roll icon costume is a performer's outfit rather than a street one: a sharp suit jacket, a swept-back pompadour, and one accessory turned up louder than an everyday version would carry. Our Mens 50s Blue Icon Suit Costume ($35.95) handles the suit and our Rock Icon Wig ($20.95) the hair. The accessory is yours to bring: dark sunglasses, or a scarf at the collar.

If what you actually want is the everyday street version, the leather-look jacket, jeans, and plain tee, that is a different costume with a different name, and our grease costumes guide covers it in full. This guide is the other half of the decade: the performer, not the greaser. A tailored drape suit, the closest real-world equivalent to a sharp stage suit, could cost as much as £50 in 1950s Britain, more than five weeks' wages for the average man (Elephant and Castle Partnership). The suit was the showpiece, never the backdrop, and that is still where the money goes.

Table of Contents

• What makes a costume read as a 1950s rock icon?
• The suit: sharp enough for a stage entrance
• The hair carries more of the look than the jacket does
• Her side of the era: a pin-up dress with icon glamour
• The four picks, side by side
• Sizing and care, one rule for all four
• Frequently asked questions

What makes a costume read as a 1950s rock icon?

Three signals, in order of how much work they do: the hair first, a tailored jacket second, one bold accessory third. Drop the hair and the look flattens into generic 1950s; drop the accessory and it is merely correct. The jacket half has real fashion history behind it. Britain's tailored answer to the decade, the drape jacket with a velvet collar, was knocked together by backstreet tailors rather than the expensive Savile Row houses it imitated (Jacobin), which is to say the money went into the cut, not the label. The build below follows the same order of priorities: the $35.95 jacket set covers the jacket, shirt insert, and tie in one go, the wig is the only other thing to buy, and the accessory is whatever is already in your drawer.

The suit: sharp enough for a stage entrance

Our Mens 50s Blue Icon Suit Costume ($35.95) is a dark blue suit jacket with a white shirt insert and a black slim necktie. The insert is the useful part: no separate dress shirt to buy, iron, or tuck. And the blue is not incidental. A black suit reads funeral or waiter; a colored jacket is what marks the outfit out as stagewear before anyone gets close enough to see the tie.

Three chest sizes: Medium (38 to 40 inches), Large (41 to 43 inches), and XL (44 to 46 inches). Between two, take the larger one. A snug fit across the back is what makes a costume jacket look like a costume jacket, and this cut wants shoulder room to hang straight. A cold hand wash only, jacket and shirt insert kept separate, then air dry flat or on a hanger; heat is what takes the shape out of it.

The hair carries more of the look than the jacket does

Our Rock Icon Wig ($20.95) is a black quiff wig with built-in sideburns, and those two details are the ones doing the dating: height at the front, hair down past the ears at the sides. No amount of product will fake it on a modern short cut. One size, and it is the piece you cannot skip. A suit jacket over your own flat hair is a man in a blue suit.

One size fits most adults; pin longer natural hair up underneath first, or the quiff loses a little height with every hour of the party. A cold hand wash only, reshape the quiff by hand while it is still damp, then air dry it on a wig stand and not on a towel. A towel flattens the back of it while the front is still drying.

Her side of the era: a pin-up dress with icon glamour

Our Womens Rockabilly Costume ($25.95) is a black-and-white polka dot dress with a red ruffled hem and a matching red flower hairclip. The polka dot does for her what the quiff does for him: it dates the outfit from across a room, before anyone is close enough to notice the shoes are modern. Pair it with our 50s Film Star Wig ($22.95), a curled white-blonde style, if you want the glamour half of the decade rather than the stage half.

Sized by UK dress size: Small fits UK 4 to 6, running up to XX-Large at UK 20 to 22, five sizes in all. That is a different scale from the jacket's chest inches, so read this dress's own chart rather than carrying a number over from the men's order. A cold hand wash only, wash gently in cool water and reshape before drying, then air dry flat and away from direct heat.

The four picks, side by side

Two complete looks, each with a hair option: $56.90 for the men's jacket set and quiff wig together, $48.90 for the dress and the film star wig. The four picks run on three different size scales between them, so match the row to the page you order from.

Sizing and care, one rule for all four

Every MorphCostumes costume, these four included, is measured across 30+ points and sits behind the 500,000-plus quality checks we run across the business each year. Those numbers describe how a piece is built; they cannot tell you how the jacket will sit on your shoulders. Three scales cover the four picks: chest inches for the jacket, UK dress size for the dress, one size for both wigs. Open the chart on the page you are actually ordering from.

All four pieces take a cold hand wash only, and none of them is machine washable or dryer-safe. Air dry the jacket and dress flat or on a hanger; reshape both wigs by hand while damp before they go back on a stand. Wigs are the slowest of the four to dry, so if the look is going out twice in one weekend, wash the hair first and the clothes after.

Want the everyday street cut instead of the stage one? Our grease costumes guide runs the leather-look jacket and the greaser-versus-rockabilly terminology in full. Our 60s dress up guide picks up the following decade, our 50s costume guide covers the era beyond just this one look, and every era we stock lives on the decade costumes shelf.

Frequently asked questions