The best dress in the room doesn’t need three paragraphs. Jane Austen can slay it in five words: “Their dress had every advantage.” Translation: fashionable, confident, ready for the room—but perhaps not much more.
And Bob Mackie? He could obliterate us all, defining a character or a career with carefully sewn sequins.
Before She Says A Word
What Bob Mackie Taught Me About Dressing a Character
“Their dress had every advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence at home, and favourites abroad.”
These lines open the fifth chapter of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Our heroine, Anne Elliot, is giving us what she saw of the Musgrove sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, as they entered the room—the cottage in Uppercross. Not once does Austen describe what the sisters are wearing, but the rest of the sentence fills our heads with an image. Austen is a masterclass in dressing for the room and the moment.
That’s not a one-off. Austen uses Catherine Morland’s anxiety as she decides what to wear to a ball to highlight what it means for a young woman to realize she’s going to be looked at the minute she enters the room. In Mansfield Park, we get a little bit of color when Fanny Price hopes that her dress, a white dress, is not too fine. Mrs. Norris reassures her, “A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white.” None of this tells us the details, the trimmings of the dress. But again, it expresses the anxiety of a woman wondering if she’s holding up to the rules that society places on her. And it also gives us this very weak reassurance that she’s all right. Yet to the reader, the detail tells us so much about Fanny and Mrs. Norris.
Now, while I love to spill on the details, partially because I’m a fabric-and-notion girly, Austen has made me more conscious of what I want the outfit to say about the person and the moment.
So today’s essay is more about a designer whom Austen, once she got over the shock of the curve-hugging lines, might approve of: Bob Mackie, the gowns he designed, and the messages they spoke to the audience.
Mackie the Industry Vet
Robert Gordon “Bob” Mackie was born March 24, 1939, in Monterey Park, California. He began his career as a sketch artist, working for major costume designers including Edith Head and Jean Louis. While working for Jean, the young Mackie drew the design sketch for Marilyn Monroe’s crystal-covered “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” gown.
His early breakthrough came when Mitzi Gaynor hired him in 1966 for her Las Vegas revue and television specials. His designs became household legends with his work for The Carol Burnett Show. He designed for Burnett throughout the 11-year run, including the legendary green velvet curtain-rod dress for the skit, 1976 “Went with the Wind!”
With Cher, Mackie became known in the music industry. His revealing, beaded designs for The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour helped make Mackie a household name; later creations included Cher’s dramatic 1986 Oscars feathered ensemble and the gown she wore to accept her 1988 Best Actress Oscar.
Mackie designed for Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Liza Minnelli, Lola Falana, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Madonna, Beyoncé, RuPaul, and many others. He shared an Oscar nomination for costume design for Ross’s Lady Sings the Blues (1972) with Ray Aghayan and Norma Koch.
He never stopped designing, and younger stars like Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Zendaya, and more have taken to Mackie like a rite of passage.
Mackie and the Light
As I’ve studied the designs of the 1600s and the Georgian and Regency periods, I’m fascinated by silhouettes and fabrics. Every article and material indicates not only status but access and even the internals of a character. I’ve studied how candlelight can skip across silk, even change direction based on how the fabric is woven. I’ve learned to notice how the weight of velvet flows differently as a woman comes down stairs. My Lady Worthing mysteries are seasonal, so that is a fun thing to explore.
Mackie knew the importance of light, particularly how beads throw light across a ballroom, how the shimmer can accentuate the length of a leg or arm, how swaying can start before a movement as well as linger when it’s done. His flame dresses, worn by Tina, Cher, Beyoncé, Miley, and probably more, are perfect examples of this balance.
That is one of the reasons I have always loved Bob Mackie. Mackie understood something fundamental about clothes: the dress does not exist separately from the body. The light is entwined with the camera angles and the music, whether the performer is singing, acting, or offering a joke.
Mackie and the Entrance
Something that I pay attention to is how a character enters a room. Is it dramatic? Does it follow a confrontation? And for those of us still hung up on the movie Sinners, we all understand what it means to be invited in.
The entrance reveals so much. Mackie knew this.
Carol Burnett wanted to spoof Gone With the Wind. Mackie knew the iconic green-curtain dress in the movie made Scarlett O’Hara a beauty that Rhett almost couldn’t reject.
The script called for Burnett’s character to come downstairs wearing curtains. Mackie decided simply draping curtains around her wasn’t funny enough.
So the minute Carol had to reveal herself, Mackie knew typical elegance wasn’t the answer. The outfit had to be a part of the joke. Mackie made his curtain dress and insisted the curtain rod remain inside. It’s iconic. It tells its own joke the minute the dress is seen. The resulting green velvet confection—with its sweeping skirt, extravagant tassels, and horizontal rod extending from the shoulders—became one of television’s greatest sight gags.
It is hilarious because it is also gorgeous.
There is volume. There is drape. There are yards of sumptuous fabric. There are tassels and layers and a silhouette that would not be entirely out of place in a nineteenth-century fashion plate.
Until you notice she is wearing the window.
That’s Mackie.
Fabric could create desire.
Fabric could create glamour.
And fabric could deliver a punch line.
The costume is now in the Smithsonian. It was just that much of the moment.
Mackie Made Her The Moment
It’s 1975. Cher is heading for a divorce from TV partner and husband Sonny Bono. Everyone knew Sonny and Cher. Mackie knew the way Cher looked had to show glamour and a woman standing on her own. Bob Mackie was there to dress this new, solo Cher. The internet is littered with reels and videos showing dress reveals, all designed by Mackie. Cher becomes emblematic of sexiness, strength, and beauty while reclaiming the charm and humor everyone knew when she was married.
While working with Cher, Mackie met Tina Turner. Tina and Cher performed together repeatedly, and Mackie was designing the clothes. Mackie later remembered this as an unsettled period for Tina. She’d left Ike and, as Mackie put it, was “kind of hiding out.”
Tina had been working smaller venues to rebuild herself as a solo act. Mackie remembered her as searching for “a different life.” His clothes helped distinguish the emerging Tina Turner from the woman audiences associated with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
He designed for her body in motion. Mackie understood that Tina wasn’t going to stand elegantly under a spotlight. She’d strut, kick, and dance around the entire stage. He emphasized her legs with extremely high slits and short skirts, with trunks sewn underneath so she could move freely.
Mackie created a gold-and-silver chain-fringe bodysuit with enormous pleated gold-lamé wings for Tina’s solo nightclub performances, including one at Caesars Palace. He made sure the wings would remain behind her until she suddenly extended her arms and opened them to their full span. When Tina did, the world stopped for just a second. She was a beautiful butterfly. In her 2020 memoir, she remembered wearing the winged costume and feeling as though she were about to take flight and soar.
Mackie knew what she needed, what Cher needed, and made it happen in sequins and shimmer.
When I write, I have to remember that costume design—the clothing that each character wears—becomes part of the choreography. I have to anticipate what the body will do and make sure that the outfit does not compete with the performer but becomes the performer’s second skin.
My Mackie Moment
In 1958, Eunice W. Johnson transformed a charity fashion show into a traveling institution, the Ebony Fashion Fair. Eunice, the powerhouse, went into European and American fashion houses—spaces that had often excluded Black people—and bought couture. She put powerful statement brands on Black models. For fifty years, Ebony Fashion Fair presented Black audiences with an extraordinary proposition: This beauty belongs to you, too.
In 2001, Eunice commissioned Bob Mackie to create an ensemble for the Ebony Fashion Fair. The Chicago History Museum describes the result as a skintight, 1930s-style, heavily beaded gown with a separate face-framing hood and an ostrich-feather coat. The gown was lined with sheer silk selected to match the Black model’s skin tone, creating the illusion of a nude body beneath the beadwork. Virginia Heaven, the costume curator of the Chicago History Museum, described the finished ensemble afterward as “part fairy princess, part Vegas showgirl, part Barbie doll.”
Speaking of Barbie dolls, I collect a few. A few years ago, I found out that Mackie designed an “International Beauty Collection” for Mattel. Fantasy Goddess of Africa originated in 1999. Mackie’s archives describe the Africa doll as being inspired by a “Serengeti sunset.” I had to get one. She’s wearing a fitted, embroidered, and beaded gown, with cinnamon skin, cuffs, neckpiece, and headdress.
I looked at her today. Took her out of her box and smiled at the way the light reflected in her gown. I can’t believe I own a piece of Bob Mackie history, and one that is so personal to me:
Fashion. Black beauty. History. Costuming. Storytelling.
And movement. Plenty of movement. The feathers move.
Mackie Left the Building
Bob Mackie died September 14, 2026, from pneumonia. He left us with a world of pictures of glamour, moments of joy and beauty, and reclamation of power.
Rest in brilliance, Bob Mackie.
And thank you for the shimmer and the sparkle.
This week’s booklist includes:
The Art of Bob Mackie by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross. This is a comprehensive celebration of Mackie’s career, filled with photographs, original sketches, and stories behind his unforgettable creations.
Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher. Cher tells the story of her childhood, rise to fame, marriage to Sonny Bono, and the complicated partnership that helped create—and eventually forced her to reinvent—one of entertainment’s most recognizable personas.
My Love Story by Tina Turner. Turner recounts her journey from Nutbush, Tennessee, through the Ike & Tina Turner years and into the extraordinary solo career and personal life she built for herself afterward.
Dress in the Age of Jane Austen: Regency Fashion by Hilary Davidson. A richly illustrated exploration of Regency clothing, textiles, and fashion through Austen’s life and writing.
Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair by Joy L. Bivins and Rosemary K. Adams, eds. The book celebrates Eunice W. Johnson and the Ebony Fashion Fair’s extraordinary role in bringing couture, Black beauty, and a new vision of Black America to audiences nationwide.
Writer in Residence by Rhonda McKnight. A struggling novelist escapes to the South Carolina Lowcountry hoping to recover her words, only to find romance, buried family secrets, and an unexpected connection to Gullah Geechee heritage that challenges her to reclaim both her story and her future.
And yes—Sunday, September 20 at 2:00 PM at FoxTale Book Shoppe, Rhonda McKnight and I will be entering the room to discuss her new novel.
RSVP for this conversation.
And FoxTale Book Shoppe has a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea and Murder in St. James’s Park.
You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
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