Bob Mackie: His Work And Legacy
The fashion industry has lost one of its legends and it’s safe to say that the world of celebrity dressing will never be the same. Some designers make clothes, others create history, Bob Mackie was the latter. For more than six decades Mackie created some of the most iconic looks in history, his extravagant creations redefined an industry looking for something new. From Cher to Tina Turner Bob Mackie broke the mould and created a legacy that changed the fashion world forever.
Known as the “Sultan of sequins” Mackie began his career as a costume designer working on a number of productions for Paramount Studios under Edith Head including Donovan’s Reef and A New Kind of Love. In 1962 Mackie, working for French couturier Jean Louis, was tasked with drawing the original sketch for the infamous gown Marilyn Monroe wore to President John F. Kennedy’s birthday celebration, and this was just the beginning of an illustrious career designing gowns for the biggest celebrity icons.
In the late 1960s Mackie achieved his first taste of success, designing the costumes for Mitzi Gaynor’s Las Vegas residency. Their collaboration would span decades carving out a legacy for Mackie and his show-stopping extravagant identity. The friendship of Bob Mackie and Mitzi Gaynor wasn’t just a visual spectacle; it was an award-winning partnership that resulted in two Emmy awards for Outstanding Costume Design and cemented Mackie as a force to be reckoned with.
After his tenure with Mitzi Gaynor, Mackie was just getting started. His work on The Carol Burnett Show became a defining moment of his career. Whilst on the show, Mackie began to experiment with costume as comedy and spectacle. He quickly learnt that an outfit could act as a punchline; exaggerated silhouettes and heavy embellishment could transform a performer into an instantly recognisable character. This understanding of the relationship between glamour and humour allowed Mackie to stand apart from his contemporaries and cemented his status as an icon. In the blink of an eye, a look could be breathtakingly beautiful and then deliberately ridiculous. That was the genius of Bob Mackie.
Muses come and go within the fashion industry and leave a lasting legacy, Hepburn and Givenchy, Blow and McQueen, Campbell and Alaïa, but no partnership has ever had the cultural impact that Mackie and Cher had in the 1970s. Mackie’s designs demand attention and who better to carry that mantle than the one and only Cher. The two met when Cher was a guest star on the Carol Burnett show and the electric dynamic of their friendship has fed us for the last 60+ years. I’d be underselling it if I said that this union was groundbreaking, but there is no other way of saying it, Mackie’s designs were fierce; theatrical, and glamorous and Cher carried them with such strength and grace it earned the pair the much-deserved status of “iconic.”
Before Princess Diana’s revenge dress, we had Cher’s revenge dress, an outrageously gorgeous middle finger to the Academy Awards following her Oscars’s snub. It’s 1986 and Mackie creates a jaw dropping black ensemble adorned with tassels, an array of beading, a spectacle mohawk and a daring low cut to expose much of Cher’s midriff. In true Mackie fashion this dress wasn’t just a display of his expert craftsmanship but an elaborate attempt to showcase his deserved place within the fashion industry, following years of questions about his “diversion” from typical fashion ideals.
Perhaps one of the most defining aspects of Mackie’s career was his understanding of “camp” and its place within the film and television industry, for him theatrical extravagance was the point. Bob Mackie was an artist, his work was an expert blend of playfulness, whimsy, and fantasy, wrapped in strong sculptural silhouettes that accentuate the beauty of the female body. In his mind, whilst fashion is in every aspect of our daily lives, true fashion is a spectacle in which barriers must be pushed and creativity is meant to be explored, go big or go home. He took traditional ideals about fashion and femininity and exaggerated them, creating a moment, allowing audiences to understand that these two ideas can coexist, and in doing so, you can create beautiful art that will be remembered for a lifetime. Mackie understood that glamour could be humorous, sensual and theatrical all at once. His clothes did not simply dress his subjects; they created characters.
The influence of Bob Mackie is evident today in the way modern performers approach fashion. Red carpets aren’t just about wearing a nice dress or a well-tailored suit, it’s about creating an image, a story, and the boundary between fashion and performance has forever been blurred. Take the creative partnership between Zendaya and her stylist Law Roach, their approach to theme dressing has taken the industry by storm, with each look telling a detailed story with a clear visual narrative. For Bob Mackie, the sequins and feathers were just a means to an end when detailing his vision, the real goal was to push the idea that performers and their clothing are and can be larger than life.
It can be argued that Bob Mackie’s greatest legacy was not the sequins, feathers or daring silhouettes, but the idea that fashion was never one-size-fits-all. It did not need to follow strict rules or conform to conventional ideas of beauty. Fashion could be funny, sexy, theatrical and unapologetic. Through his work, Mackie gave performers permission to be larger than life, to wear something that demanded attention and, most importantly, to enjoy the spectacle. He understood that clothing could give its wearer a sense of power — not by making them disappear into the garment, but by making them impossible to ignore.
The fashion and costume world will forever be a little dimmer without the dazzling light of Bob Mackie.
By Clarissa Straughn
