Bob Mackie is Behind Your Favorite Pop Culture Moments

Sabrina Carpenter at the 2024 VMAs referenced Madonna at the 1991 Academy Awards. Madonna’s reference can then be linked back to Marilyn Monroe, who sang “Happy Birthday” to JFK in 1962. What connects these three moments in pop culture history? Bob Mackie. 

The legendary costume designer has bejeweled stars from the ’60s to present day, dressing larger-than-life personalities including Cher, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, RuPaul and countless other industry icons—even Barbie. 

The Sultan of Sequins and father of the nude illusion passed away on Sept. 14 at 87 years old in Palm Springs, California. He leaves behind a decades-spanning legacy, having created some of the most memorable looks in show business. 

I don’t think we will ever see someone who understood how to dress a star quite like Bob Mackie. People tend to remember these iconic moments for the person wearing the clothes, but that’s only half of the story.  

Mackie understood that. His designs didn’t simply complement a star; they were part of the spectacle, personality, and performance, and sometimes a visual gag that was just as chic as it was touch-in-cheek. 

In my opinion, nowhere is this more apparent than Mackie’s designs for The Carol Burnett Show. 

After seeing his dazzling looks for Mitzy Gaynor’s Las Vegas revue, Mackie was hand-picked by Carol Burnett in 1967 to be the costume designer for her variety show special, where he would create upwards of 60 costumes per week for the shows stars and supporting performers. 

I think that Mackie’s outrageous, high-energy designs danced beautifully with Burnett’s highly expressive, hysterically funny, and comically absurd characters. The garments played just as much of a role in building a character as scriptwriting or line delivery by amplifying the scene’s visual humor.  

One of the most memorable looks to come out of the show was the curtain dress, featured in the show’s parody of Gone with the Wind. Made entirely out of curtains, the look fell exactly at the line between ridiculous and spectacular. With Mackie, the clothes could communicate the scene before a single word was spoken. 

The ability to turn clothing into character would become one of the defining features of Mackie’s career, carrying through to his most famous partnership by far with the Goddess of Pop herself, Cher. 

Meeting in 1967, Mackie went on to design the costumes for Sunny Bono and Cher’s variety show The Sunny and Cher Comedy Hour that ran from 1971 to 1974. There, as The New York Times wrote, he “delighted television audiences and confounded the network’s censors, as Mr. Mackie bared more and more of Cher’s extraordinary physique in ever more outlandish getups.”  

Mackie’s designs were loud, provocative, gleaming, only fit to be worn by someone like Cher. His clothes pushed the boundaries of what audiences were used to seeing on television, provoking criticism from viewers and networks that hadn’t so much as shown a woman’s bellybutton before. 

With Cher, Mackie perfected the naked illusion dress: a sparkly, often fringed or feathered, skin-tight, see-through mesh that blended seamlessly with the wearer’s skin tone. Although crafting his first naked dress in 1968 for Mizty Gaynor, it was Cher’s iconic 1974 Met Gala look (photographs of which I’m sure you’ve seen) that sent the designer into the stratosphere.  

The dress later appeared in Cher’s 1975 TIME magazine cover shoot, a look so problematic that some cities had their covers ripped off before selling or were outright banned from newsstands. In the cities where the cover remained intact, the issue sold out almost immediately. 

Bob Mackie and Cher would go on to share a five-decade creative partnership that redefined celebrity glamour, creating looks that continue to be referenced throughout pop culture and recreated every Halloween.  

Amongst the most memorable ones are the teal body suit from 1978, the golden two-piece from 1973, the red ringmaster look from 1974, the butterfly Grammy’s look from 1974, the Oscar-winner dress from 1988, and of course, the Oscars revenge headdress from 1986.  

“He brought glamour to a sequin-starved America,” said Frank DeCaro, author of  Unmistakably Mackie: The Fashion and Fantasy of Bob Mackie. 

In my opinion, the impact that Bob Mackie had on the entertainment industry was unmeasurable and undeniable; his influence is impossible to separate from how we experience celebrity culture today.  

He helped shape the idea that fashion is deeply tied to the story celebrities tell an audience. We see that storytelling in partnerships like Zendaya and Law Roach, where styling is more than visual appeal, becoming an extension of the person wearing them. 

Each of Mackie’s looks told a story, built to be seen from the largest of stages and remembered long after the curtains closed. “A woman who wears my clothes in not afraid to be noticed,” Mackie famously said. From his early Hollywood career to the generations of performers that followed, I think that his work proved exactly that.

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