Fashion legend and Cher collaborator Bob Mackie on dressing divas and the definition of sexy
On a blistering November evening, Ariana Grande braved London’s relentless downpour at her premiere of Wicked: For Good in Leicester Square. Inside, as soon as the cinema’s lights dimmed and audiences settled in for the movie, she dashed out under the cover of night and raced halfway across town for a secret rendezvous. Who, you might ask, would warrant such desperate devotion and cause this beloved pop diva to skip her own screening?
Turns out it was Bob Mackie, who I meet the following day. He greets me with his megawatt smile in the cellar of London’s Stafford Hotel; it boasts a secret passageway leading directly into Buckingham Palace, along which kings once smuggled their mistresses. Posh, dramatic and a little bit scandalous, the place feels fitting for this member of Hollywood costume royalty, a man known for his high-glamour (and sometimes cheeky) creations synonymous with the visual identities of Cher, Tina Turner, Barbara Streisand and more. I’m here for an intimate private preview of his pieces that will appear in an early December auction in Los Angeles.
Mackie tells me about his encounter with Grande the night before: the pint-sized popstar was gushing over the gowns on display, from a 1987 runway red sequined dress with cancan-esque ruffled skirt, to a 1977 winged wonder worn by Tina Turner at her Caesar’s Palace performance.
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A dress Bob Mackie designed for Tina Turner after her break-up with Ike Turner, worn at her 1977 Las Vegas show. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
Mackie stops at each dress, regaling me with stories of its wearer. “Tina was a force of nature; she had her hands in everything, she understood lighting, and even though she had choreographer Toni Basil, she would be back there showing the backup dancers some steps,” says Mackie.
“In the beginning, she didn’t have a lot of money, but she’d go to Paris flea markets and [buy things, then] ask me to shred them up. This [winged] dress was made after the difficult break-up with Ike [Turner] before her Vegas show and she told me, ‘I feel like I’m getting my wings back.’”
British pop singer Elton John wearing a Bob Mackie Donald Duck costume at a 1980 concert in New York. (Photos: Getty Images)
American singer Diana Ross at the 20th Annual American Fashion Awards in 2001. (Photo: Getty Images)
Enthusiastically finishing each other’s sentences, Mackie and his design director Joe McFate dive into the details about everyone he has dressed, from fun-loving Elton John and his infamous Donald Duck costume for his 1980 Central Park concert (“Not only did he have the big padded butt but he had the flippers and he couldn’t press the pedals of the piano and he burst into hysterical laughter!”) to Queen of Motown Diana Ross (“No one understood better how to pose and use those clothes; you could give her 15 yards [13 metres] of fabric and she would figure out how to make an entrance.”).
Mackie discusses each dress like it’s an artefact in a museum, highlighting its intent, or a moment in time. He is adamant that a look should be an extension of its wearer. “There are people who are good fashion designers, but that doesn’t mean they’re good costume designers; you have to think theatrically, you have to think about [an artist’s] personality, and know whether they can get away with it,” he says.
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In front of a nude, hip-grazing dress dripping in teardrop paillettes, worn by Cher in a special 1978 performance, Mackie recalls the moment he met the star that would become his lifelong creative collaborator.
Bob Mackie and his lifelong creative collaborator, singer and actor Cher. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
“Cher is like a creature from another planet,” he says. “When I met her for the first time, I was thinking this was going to be a heavy-duty goth girl and she wasn’t at all, she’d walked in and she had little ponytails on either side of her head and a sundress and sandals, and I said to someone she looked like Audrey Hepburn’s little sister. She was adorable.”
Mackie and Cher went on to change the face of stage and red-carpet dressing. The designer, who became known early on for his nude dresses— the sheer crystal confections he created for the likes of American actor and singer Mitzi Gaynor—is the man behind Cher’s now iconic feathered number for the first-ever Met Gala in 1974.
This was a time when, in Cher’s own words, “They hadn’t even seen a belly button on television.”
Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions, which is behind the sale of Mackie’s archival pieces, tells me: “Our cultural conservative values at the time were rocked to their core.” Mackie remembers the initial shock and horror in the room, but soon dozens of photographers descended on Cher and she was asked to grace the cover of Vogue and Time magazine in the very same outfit.
Across six decades, the duo would create some of the most era-defining looks in fashion and pop-culture history. Who could forget Cher’s black caged dress with a towering, feathered headpiece at the 1986 Oscars? The outrageous look was chosen to recapture the spotlight in defiance of her being snubbed for her role in the film Mask; the Academy deemed her flamboyant style a reflection of her being not being a serious actor.
“The headlines were hilarious after Cher’s Oscars appearance—but now they say the red carpets aren’t as good as they used to be,” says Mackie. “They’d hate it when she came out dressed tastefully and elegantly; they’d say it’s boring.”
Cher at the 1986 Oscars, wearing an outfit by Bob Mackie. (Photo: Getty Images)
Bob Mackie’s sketch for Cher’s famous 1986 Oscars outfit. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
And while some may have deemed Mackie’s designs “shocking”, they have always empowered the women who wear them. Anna Bayle, often dubbed the first Asian supermodel, who often walked the designer’s New York runway shows in the 1980s and 90s, told me: “The women he designs for are flirty, elegant, established, powerful, sexy and sensual. I adore Bob Mackie—he has a very beautiful, happy energy around him.”
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I next speak to Mackie after he flies back to the Californian city of Palm Springs where he lives and where, on December 7, he accepted the Margaret O’Brien Legend Award. The city decided to crown it Bob Mackie Day to recognise his extraordinary contributions to entertainment and design. The nine-time Emmy winner, Tony Award recipient and multi-Oscar-nominated designer is no stranger to golden statues, but his all-American, aw-shucks humility means he’s never really dwelt on his success.
Nolan says, “Bob kept so busy loving the craft of what he was doing, he didn’t have time to think about being famous or his fame or collectability; he was just thinking about the deadlines, what needed to be made today to make it on the show tomorrow.”
Carol Burnett and Bob Mackie (second and third from left) on the set of ‘The Carol Burnett Show’. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
One of Hollywood’s most prolific costumers, Mackie made an estimated 17,000 outfits for the hugely influential TV variety programme The Carol Burnett Show over 11 years, some of which have made it into the Smithsonian Institution. “He became famous unbeknownst to himself.”
Long before he ascended the fashion throne as the Sultan of Sequins, Mackie was a teenage boy who eschewed sport for scribbling. Born in 1939 in Monterey Park, California, Mackie recalls finding solace and stimulation in the vibrant technicolour of early Hollywood, falling deeply in love with its fantastical stage shows and musicals.
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The movie that first captured his imagination was Meet Me in St Louis starring none other than Margaret O’Brien. “More than fashion, I loved showbusiness, the theatrical part of it all,” says Mackie. “I would make these sets and costumes out of paper, put them in my bedroom and turn on music and a flashlight so it’d become a stage.”
The stage would become his lifelong home and canvas. Mackie was plucked from obscurity at the age of 19, sketching for the legendary French-American designer Jean Louis, with one of his earliest diamanté drawings ending up as the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing a breathy rendition of Happy Birthday to US President John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962.
“I’d done all these sketches for a Marilyn movie that was never made—she never showed up for work half the time and they fired her—but she called up Jean Louis for a dress that’s see-through, that you can see her body [through], and he wouldn’t tell me what it was for,” Mackie recalls. “A couple weeks later in the newspaper there was Marilyn in that dress singing to President Kennedy!”
With a knack for distilling a star’s essence into a mosaic of fabric and sequins, his most loyal collaborators, from Cher to Elton John, have been outspoken about how integral his designs have been to their success as performers.
Speakers at the premiere of ‘Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion’ (from left): Mackie’s design director Joe McFate, RuPaul, Carol Burnett, Mackie, Cher, Pink, the film’s director Matthew Miele
“Bob creates looks that are truly made for the stage,” says Bradley Kenneth, the stylist behind Miley Cyrus’s comeback looks. “They transform the moment the lights hit them, and the way they move and glisten is completely unique to his work. No one else thinks about impact onstage the way Bob does. His designs are built to perform.”
Mackie’s designs are deeply personal to its intended subject and no two dresses are the same. In his 2024 documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion, a visit to his atelier shows that the designer is incredibly specific about the placement of every stitch and sequin.
“I have to look at what they do and how they move; you don’t just make an adorable frock and put it on anybody. It doesn’t work that way,” Mackie says. “If they’re known for their dancing or humour, all of those things come into consideration. With Carol Burnett, who did so much comedy, I would read the script and make suggestions for how to get more laughs.”
Jared Ellner, Sabrina Carpenter’s stylist, sourced a bejewelled black dress that Mackie had created in 1970 for singer and actor Ann-Margret for Carpenter to wear during her debut at famed country music show the Grand Ole Opry last October. He likens working with Mackie to working with a fine artist: “It is very rare for clothing to be both functional and beautiful, but Bob manages to nail the two perfectly.”
Mackie had dressed popstar Pink for her acrobatic stage shows and her 2022 appearance at the 2022 American Music Awards, but it’s former Disney starlets Cyrus and Carpenter who have reintroduced Mackie’s designs to the zeitgeist. When Cyrus wore a shimmering vintage Bob Mackie gown from his autumn-winter 2002 collection for her performance of Flowers at the 2024 Grammys, where she went on to win Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance, a whole new generation rediscovered the magic of Mackie. As Nolan puts it, “There was a before and after Miley Cyrus; after her, everyone came calling.”
Singer Pink attends the 2022 American Music Awards wearing a Bob Mackie dress. (Photo: Getty Images)
Sabrina Carpenter attends the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards wearing a Bob Mackie dress. (Photo: Getty Images)
It took some convincing, though. Mackie and his team are notoriously selective about whom they dress. Cyrus and Kenneth had to campaign hard to get McFate and Mackie to agree to dress her, with Cyrus sending giant flower arrangements to Mackie to plead her case.
“We don’t loan racks of clothes to people, we fit them meticulously; if we haven’t fitted it, they’re not wearing it,” says McFate. With archival pieces being so delicate, Mackie’s team only pulls out the dresses that would match the height, size and skin tone of the celebrity. Thankfully for Cyrus, the dress fit her perfectly; they merely had to move a hook and eye.
Zendaya, another of Mackie’s celebrity fans, had asked to wear one of his creations early on in her career—and was rejected. Mackie insisted she was not old enough for the revealing gown. “Several years later she calls me and asks ‘Am I old enough now?’” Mackie tells me, laughing. She eventually wore that now-viral shimmering, belly- baring column to induct Cher into the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Miley Cyrus performs at the 2024 Grammy Awards in a Bob Mackie dress. (Photo: Getty Images)
Zendaya wore Bob Mackie at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony to introduce Cher. (Photo: Getty Images )
Despite how risqué some of his most skin-revealing designs can be, Mackie is the master of treading the line between making women feel sexy and sexualising them. “Bob always knew when it was too much because he always understood the boundary line of what to show and not to show,” says McFate. Mackie interjects, “If you’re too involved in looking sexy then usually it’s not very successful; it has to be subtle, just enough. That’s the way my dresses are: you can’t really see anything, you just think you can. It’s an illusion.”
Bob Mackie’s design for the outfit Cher wore to the inaugural Rock Music Awards in 1975. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
A devil costume designed by Bob Mackie for Elton John in the 1980s.(Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
Bob Mackie’s design for Cher’s ‘Turn Back Time’ music video. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
A devil costume designed by Bob Mackie for Elton John in the 1980s. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
A Bob Mackie design for Madonna. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
A week later, I catch up with Nolan on a video call after Julien Auctions’ sale of Bold Luxury: Bob Mackie, Stage Glamour & The Couture Edit at the Peninsula Beverly Hills. Celebrity stylists and collectors alike filled the floor in the hopes of getting their hands on one of Mackie’s archival creations or sketches. The aforementioned crystal-studded fringe dress worn by Ann-Margret then Sabrina Carpenter sold for US$51,200, well above its US$3,000 estimated price.
“What was interesting was to see the age group in the room—the audience was skewing younger, with lots of people in their twenties and thirties, which of course has to do with those contemporary artists introducing a whole new audience to the quality of Bob’s work,” says Nolan.
He says that the largest collector of Mackie’s pieces is a Korean buyer who has been sourcing from Julien’s Auctions for almost 50 years in the hopes of one day opening a museum in Asia to display the dresses. “Ultimately, they’re cultural artefacts, works of arts, masterpieces,” the auctioneer adds.
Bob Mackie may be in his eighties, but he shows no sign of slowing down. (Photo: courtesy of Bob Mackie)
While he has now known Mackie for several decades, Nolan has been a fan since he was a young boy. “I don’t think he fully grasps how important he was to so many people, whether it was people lucky enough to be dressed by Bob or people like me in rural Ireland watching the incredible creations on The Carol Burnett Show or Sonny and Cher, that gave people hope and made people smile, and gave them laughter. That’s Bob’s legacy; he is an icon, a true legend.”
While the rest of us ruminate on Mackie’s starry past, he and McFate are already onto the next project, developing a “new kind of spectacular show”, as McFate puts it.
“With Taylor Swift and the resurgence of the showgirl, it feels very different now, so we’re still working out something special for 2026—maybe it’s a Broadway version of that but …” Before McFate could finish explaining, Mackie with a big grin, chimes in excitedly, “I’m ready!”
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