Bob Mackie, Hollywood costume designer for Cher and Carol Burnett, dies at 87

Life and career beginnings

Bob Mackie, the American fashion and costume designer known as the "Sultan of Sequins", died on Monday, 14 September 2026, at the age of 87 in a hospital in Palm Springs, California. Born in Monterey Park, California, on 24 March 1939, Mackie left university to pursue costume design and sketching in Hollywood. During the 1960s, he worked under costume designer Ray Aghayan at Paramount Studios and assisted designers Jean Louis and Edith Head, contributing to 1963 feature films including Donovan's Reef and A New Kind of Love. In 1962, while assisting Jean Louis, Mackie drew the original sketch for the sheer beaded dress Marilyn Monroe wore to sing at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser for President John F. Kennedy. His representatives confirmed his death through an announcement published on his social media accounts.

Television work with Carol Burnett and Cher

Mackie gained widespread television recognition after Carol Burnett hired him in 1967, before he turned 30, to design costumes for The Carol Burnett Show. Over the course of the program's 11 seasons, Burnett estimated that Mackie created more than 17,000 wardrobe pieces, including the green velvet curtain-rod gown featured in the 1976 parody sketch Went With the Wind!. In 1971, Mackie began designing outfits for The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, where the wardrobe budget reached approximately $30,000 per episode. His television and stage designs for Cher spanned multiple decades, including the sheer dress for the 1975 Met Gala, the midriff-baring ensemble and Mohawk headdress worn to the 1986 Academy Awards, and the transparent body stocking from her 1989 music video for If I Could Turn Back Time. Cher credited the designer with defining her visual style.

I would have been a peacock without feathers.

Stage collaborations and pop culture impact

Mackie created stage wear for performers across five decades, collaborating with Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Elton John, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Mitzi Gaynor, Whitney Houston, RuPaul and Bette Midler. When collaborating with Turner in the 1970s, Mackie cut inexpensive cocktail dresses into shorter silhouettes and made flame-patterned stage wear that Turner and Cher wore during a joint 1977 television performance. Beyond stage productions, Mackie designed collector editions for Barbie and created an embroidered clothing line for the QVC television network. Modern recording artists including Zendaya, Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift have worn vintage Mackie garments, while his archival pieces have drawn substantial sums at public auctions.

Awards and preservation stances

Mackie received nine Emmy Awards during his career, including wins in 1999 for Cher: Live in Concert From Las Vegas and in 2003 for Cher: The Farewell Tour. He secured three Academy Award nominations for costume design in 1973, 1976 for Barbra Streisand's Funny Lady, and 1982, before his induction into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2019, Mackie won a Tony Award for designing the costumes for the Broadway production of The Cher Show. When Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe's 1962 dress to the 2022 Met Gala, Mackie voiced opposition to wearing preserved garments.

I thought it was a big mistake.