Bob Mackie, the fashion guru of glitter
Bob Mackie, the fashion designer who passed away at age 87, may be a blast from the past—the 1970s to the early ’80s, when his glittering costumes defined television variety shows and global pop culture—but he is actually familiar to Filipinos because of his association with supermodel Anna Bayle and his famous line of Barbie dolls, prized by collectors. For the new generation, he has been revived by the likes of Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus on the concert stage, and Zendaya and Sabrina Carpenter on the red carpet.
Remembering a backstage moment, Bayle described Mackie as having a “beautiful, happy energy” and noted that he always believed “fashion should spark imagination and joy” during the times she walked for his New York runway shows and was featured in editorials throughout the 1980s and ’90s. She modeled his 1984-1985 collection in a widely celebrated WWD feature and walked for his fall 1988 collection, presenting Juarez, a black velvet strapless gown paired with gun holster gloves. She pays tribute to his genius and style for women who are “elegant, powerful and sensual” and says that his showgirl aesthetic and exuberant energy pushed her to discover a playful side of herself.
With an eternally boyish face, Mackie maintained a childlike sense of wonder from the time he was born in 1939 in California. His entry point to fashion was cinema, where his mother and older sister took him starting at age three, when he questioned why they wore all that bling. Carmen Miranda was a favorite for wearing “so many funny things and colors, high shoes and fruits in her hat.” At age 10, he found the ballet in An American in Paris to be “the most beautiful thing.” The costume designer Irene Sharaff was his idol.
“I wasn’t that interested in fashion; I really wanted to be part of the entertainment industry,” he revealed in a Vogue interview.
Right after art school, he worked at Paramount Studios for Edith Head, who had many middle-aged women designers, but they did not have the flamboyance he had. So, for musicals and “crazy stuff,” Mackie was always the chosen one. He enjoyed the free rein, something he missed at his next job with Jean-Louis, but there he became famous for sketching the iconic dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to president John F. Kennedy in 1962.
Mitzi Gaynor was his first star client, for whom he designed an entire show wardrobe, which included the nude-illusion gown that became very influential among other designs that won him Emmy Awards later on. In 1969, commissions from the Supremes and the Temptations followed, and in 1972, he received an Oscar nomination for Diana Ross’ costumes in Lady Sings the Blues, which he co-designed with Ray Aghayan, his romantic partner after his divorce from Lulu Porter in 1963. Porter and Mackie had a son, Robin, a makeup artist who died from AIDS at age 33 in 1993. Aghayan died in 2011.
Mackie always maintained a lightness of spirit, a quality that clients appreciated. With Carol Burnett, this was a godsend for her TV show’s run from 1967 to 1978, when he created more than 17,000 designs, including the infamous Scarlett O’Hara-inspired curtain-rod gown for the “Went with the Wind” comedy sketch. The designer was instrumental in creating and realizing characters in the show to get more laughs.
Another client who made an impact was Cher, who started on variety television, which Mackie gravitated to because “it was the nearest thing to movie musicals at the time.” Still with her husband Sonny then, Cher had a hippie look that was novel on TV, but producers didn’t really know what to do with her until the designer saw her potential and did the craziest things, including all the nude dressing accented with bling and feathers that remains a red-carpet staple to this day.
The singer recalls how they met when she was 19: “It was truly love at first sight. We were like two mischievous kids getting into trouble.”
True enough, Cher’s 1974 nude dress for the Met Gala was considered too risqué, and when it landed on the cover of Time, librarians and shop owners had to hide the issue. For the 1986 Oscars, she presented an award in a midriff-baring chain-link top and massive Mohawk headdress, an outrageous “revenge” for their snubbing her in the nomination for Best Actress in Mask. A sheer bodysuit in the 1989 music video If I Could Turn Back Time was banned by MTV from airing before 9 p.m.
To be fair, Mackie found the ensemble “vulgar and horrid” and told her, “I don’t want credit for this,” he told The Guardian in 2019. He even declined to do her clothes for her concert tour at one time, saying, “I’m in touch with clients only when they need clothes. I never want to be their best friend.”
“They called him Off-Barnum-Bob, The Sequined Sheik and The Rajah of Rhinestones. I think he could never really get a footing in the fashion world,” says Cher.
He attempted RTW beginning in 1982, but Seventh Avenue never really embraced him and never made it easy for him, maybe because people felt that if they were going to wear Bob Mackie, it had to be sexy and fabulous, not day clothes.
But for Mackie, he stayed true to his style, which he admits is “for a woman who is not afraid to get noticed.” For the millennials and Gen Z of today, for whom individuality and self-expression are paramount, his designs are right up their alley.
Miley Cyrus wore an archival crystal-stringed piece at the 2024 Grammys. Zendaya, who wanted to wear a revealing one a few years ago, was actually rejected by the designer for being too young, but finally wore a now-viral shimmering, belly-baring piece recently. Sabrina Carpenter also donned a pearl- and crystal-embellished gown reminiscent of the one Anna Bayle wore in 1990.
Right before the pandemic, Mackie said, “I’m the oldest living designer in Hollywood,” and when asked if he would retire, he said, “I hope not.” He continued working, in fact, getting a second wind with the new generation until his final years.
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