R.I.P…Gone But Never-Ever Forgotten: There Was Only One Bob Mackie
R.I.P…Gone but Never-Ever Forgotten: There Was Only One Bob Mackie. The pioneering fashion and costume designer, whose visions became inseparable from some of entertainment’s most unforgettable stars, died on September 14, 2026, at age 87. He was the whole talented package.
Mackie died from pneumonia in Palm Springs, California, according to his representative. His team remembered a man who lived his 87 years fully and fulfilled the dream he had always wanted: being a fashion and costume designer. That feels exactly right. Mackie did not simply dress performers. He helped build the fantasy around them.
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His genius lived in the collision of glamour, wit, movement and pure spectacle. Mackie could make a gown look impossibly elegant, then turn around and make a curtain rod part of one of television comedy’s most famous costumes. He understood that clothes on a stage or television screen had to do more than sit beautifully. They had to tell the audience who had just entered the room.
His career stretched from sketching in Hollywood in the early 1960s to dressing generations of stars including Cher, Carol Burnett, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Bette Midler and many more. While working under Jean Louis, Mackie drew the original sketch for Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress, already placing his hand inside one of the most famous fashion moments of the 20th century.
Then came television, and Mackie became something else entirely. On The Carol Burnett Show, he designed thousands upon thousands of costumes over its run — beautiful gowns, character pieces, wigs, comic constructions and everything in between. His legendary “Went with the Wind!” curtain dress, complete with the rod still attached, remains one of those rare costumes that became as famous as the sketch itself.
And then, of course, there was Cher. Their partnership changed the visual language of celebrity dressing. Feathers, beads, bare skin, towering headpieces, illusion fabric, impossible silhouettes — Mackie gave Cher clothes that could match the scale of Cher herself. Their work together was daring because it was never merely about shock. There was humor in it. Precision. Confidence. An understanding that glamour could be outrageous and still be exquisitely made.
His awards only begin to measure the reach: nine Emmys, a Tony Award, three Academy Award nominations and a CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award. But Mackie’s real trophy case is everywhere. It is in Burnett descending a staircase wearing curtains. It is in Cher turning an awards-show entrance into history. It is in every performer who understood afterward that the costume could be part of the performance itself.
Cher’s goodbye landed with the simplicity of someone mourning a real friend, imagining Bob arriving in heaven with his sequins, beads and sketch pad before signing off: “Good nite sweet Prince.”
There was only one Bob Mackie. His designs will keep moving long after the curtain has come down, because the best of them were never just clothes. They were entrances, punchlines, fantasies, armor and pure show-business electricity.
Remembering Bob Mackie and the Designs That Made Stars Shine
INYIM remembers Bob Mackie, the legendary fashion and costume designer whose work with Cher, Carol Burnett and generations of performers turned glamour into its own form of storytelling. Don’t have TikTok? Watch on IG.
Sources: Bob Mackie; Reuters; Associated Press; Vogue; People.
