Bob Mackie is one of the most famous and fabulous clothing designers of all time, responsible for everything from the costumes on The Carol Burnett Show to Cher’s most iconic looks. A new documentary, Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion, dives into the life and career of Mackie, taking a look at some of his most famous designs and talking to the people who have worn them.
In an interview with Good Morning America, Mackie talked about the documentary and opened up about one of his most iconic designs worn by Carol Burnett on The Carol Burnett Show. Fans may recall Burnett’s classic Gone With the Wind parody sketch, “Went With the Wind,” when she came down the stairs dressed in an outfit that looked like she got wrapped up in curtains, a hilarious inversion of Scarlett O’Hara’s famous dress sewn out of green drapes. Mackie admitted that he created the look the night before the episode was filmed and hoped that it turned out to be funny! He added that it was “so fabulous for me to do that show!” He worked with Burnett on her show for 11 years and, around the same time, worked with Cher on The Sonny and Cher Show.
Let’s take a look back at some of his most memorable looks and what inspired them!
Everett Collection
Mackie created up to 70 costumes each week for Burnett and her show’s cast and guests. Mackie said of the famous curtain dress, “Anytime you get a good laugh, you’re happy. It can be the worst joke in the world, but if you get a laugh, you’re happy.” The curtain dress is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
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Mackie first met Cher when she was a guest on The Carol Burnett Show. Cher then began tapping Mackie for special occasion outfits, and then asked him to design wardrobe for The Sonny and Cher Show.
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Mackie recalls that Cher came up with the idea for the above outfit for the 1986 Academy Awards, the year after her film Mask was released. According to Mackie, in a 2021 Variety interview:
“A lot of people probably didn’t see Mask and a lot of them thought she was a singer who couldn’t act. They didn’t even go to see the movie knowing how Hollywood works, and that kind of upset her a bit, I’m sure. I asked her, ‘What are you thinking you’d like to wear?’ and she said, ‘I’ve been doing these movies where I’m playing the hard-working, blue-collar worker and I’d like to be in something they used to see me in, like on my TV show. I’m thinking maybe a Native American-inspired costume.’
“So, I went away and started drawing. She said, ‘What if we did this and that?’ and I told her she was giving an award to someone and she couldn’t take the attention away from them. She just said, ‘Oh, they won’t care, they’ll like it.’ She was right — it was in every paper the next day.”
Photo by Darlene Hammond/Getty Images
Mackie, who also dressed Cher in the shimmering gown above, has became synonymous with Cher’s personal style. He continues to design her outfits for her live tours.
Photo by Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images for Barbie: A Cultural Icon Exhibition
In addition to dressing many leading ladies, Mackie also dressed Mattel’s Barbie, creating more than 40 Barbies clad in his signature jeweled creations. When the first Barbie ever was released in 1959, Mackie was a fashion student; he “didn’t think [the doll] was very fashionable,” Mackie said in a 2023 interview. Mackie is credited with taking the doll in a high-fashion direction: “I was a real costume designer. And I had no desire to make her look like the bookkeeper or the airline stewardess. This is more fantasy-oriented. She could be anything we wanted her to be.”
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Mackie worked with Ross early on in her career, and she was so impressed, she insisted that he help her after she was offered some stock costumes (rather than custom-designed outfits) for her role in the 1972 Billie Holiday biopic Lady Sings the Blues. Mackie joked, “The diva doesn’t do that!” Mackie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.
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