Bob Mackie, the American costume and fashion designer whose sequinned, feathered and frequently sheer creations dressed Cher, Tina Turner, Elton John and Dolly Parton across six decades, has died aged 87.
His death on Monday 14 September was announced in a statement on his Instagram account. “He lived his 87 years to the fullest, fulfilling his dream of being a Fashion and Costume Designer, which is all he ever wanted to do,” the statement said. “His genius and extraordinary designs will live on forever, continuing to bring beauty into this world.”
Mackie, nicknamed the “Sultan of Sequins”, won one Tony Award and nine Emmys and received three Oscar nominations over his career. The Council of Fashion Designers of America gave him its Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.
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From sketch artist to Judy Garland
Robert Gordon Mackie was born in Monterey Park, California, in 1939. He entered the industry as a sketch artist working for Jean Louis, the French-American costume designer, and also worked at Paramount Studios under Edith Head, who let him take on the musicals and showgirl commissions that other sketch artists avoided.
In 1962, as the assistant of Hollywood costume designer Jean Louis, he sketched the dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing Happy Birthday to President John F Kennedy.Â
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In 1963, he joined The Judy Garland Show, where he met Iranian designer Ray Aghayan, who became his professional collaborator and partner until Aghayan’s death in 2011. The pair designed for the Supremes, Diana Ross, and Barbra Streisand, and were Oscar-nominated for Ross’s costumes in the 1973 film Lady Sings the Blues.
Mackie also became widely known through television variety shows. He joined The Carol Burnett Show at its launch in September 1967 and, by Burnett’s account, produced an average of 65 costumes a week for the cast, dancers, and guest stars. His curtain dress for the show’s Gone With the Wind parody is now in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection.
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Cher and the 1986 Oscars
Mackie met Cher in the late 1960s, when she was 19, and remained her costumier for decades. He said she “looked like no one else in the entertainment business at the time” and that “everybody just went crazy over this woman as she could wear anything”. Cher later said that without him she would have been “a peacock without feathers”.
His work for her included the sheer, feathered gown worn to the 1974 Met Gala and later on the cover of Time, the 1975 Met Gala “naked” dress, and the transparent bodystocking in the 1989 video for ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’.
At the 1986 Academy Awards, Cher, overlooked for a nomination for Mask, presented an award in a black, midriff-baring showgirl outfit topped with a plumed Mohawk headdress. “I didn’t get nominated for a movie that everyone thought I would actually win for, so was dressing that night for a kind of revenge,” she said in the 2024 documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion.
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Elton John, Tina Turner and the wider client list
Mackie also designed Elton John’s bedazzled Los Angeles Dodgers uniform for his 1975 Dodger Stadium concerts and the duck costume he wore in 1980. Gucci’s Spring 2018 collection later referenced those designs.
“Every time I put something on that Bob made, I felt very, very special,” John wrote on Instagram. “In a sea of ego, he seemed to have none.”
For Tina Turner, he created the 1977 flame dress, worn after her separation from Ike Turner, as well as a fringed bodysuit in silver and gold with lamé wings. The flame dress was a centrepiece of the V&A’s Diva exhibition in London in 2023.
Pink, who wore his designs on her 2009 Funhouse tour, described Mackie as “loving, wickedly funny and an absolute genius”.
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Seventh Avenue, QVC and the archive market
Mackie launched a ready-to-wear line in 1982, followed by collectible Bob Mackie Barbie dolls and, from 1999, a long-running QVC business spanning fragrance, luggage and jewellery. Parts of the fashion establishment dismissed him as a Hollywood designer, with nicknames including “the Rajah of Rhinestones”, though the Fashion Institute of Technology staged the exhibition Unmistakably Bob in 1999, and the Met included him in its 2019 Camp show.
His archive has also attracted buyers and stylists. Cher’s naked bodysuit sold at auction in 2025 for $57,600 (£42,600), while Miley Cyrus bought the tasselled Mackie mini dress she wore to win her first Grammy in 2024.
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Taylor Swift wore an original Jubilee! cabaret costume on the cover of The Life of a Showgirl, and stylist Law Roach has put Zendaya and Anya Taylor-Joy in archival Mackie pieces. Sabrina Carpenter wore an archival Mackie look to thCarpenter wrote on Instagram that she was “so lucky to have met Bob”, signing off “Mackie girl forever”.
Meanwhile, model Coco Rocha, posting during this month’s New York Fashion Week, said his clothes “had wit, drama, fantasy and joy”. Mackie is survived by a granddaughter and two great-grandchildren. He married singer and actress Lulu Porter in 1960, although they divorced in 1963. He had one son, Robin, who died in his early thirties from an Aids-related illness.
Asked in 2018 whether he would ever retire, Mackie told The Guardian: “I hope not.”