Cher’s 10 Best Looks of All Time, Hand-Picked by Bob Mackie

“The Met Gala and the Oscars outfit have been seen in papers everywhere. Especially the latter, it’s seen again and again. The actual dress was on display at the Academy Museum for the Oscars, and they had a couple of shots inside the museum. We loaned it to them for this exhibition this fall because they’re going introduce some of those famous looks. We had to ask Cher if it was alright, and that dress is so valuable now, so we had to make sure they insured it.

“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.

“Don Ameche, who won best supporting actor for “Cocoon” and who she gave the Oscar to, was asked what did he think and he said, ‘If she hadn’t worn that outfit, my picture would not have been in every paper the next day either.’ So that was funny.

“For the Broadway show, ‘The Cher Show,’ when Stephanie J. Block came out of the ground in that outfit, the audience screamed because they all were so familiar with it and they knew exactly what it was there for. The mohawk was made with exotic strange feathers that had been burned and singed so they had an unworldly quality to them. And you know, that girl is never intimated by anything she wears or doesn’t wear, it doesn’t bother her at all. To her, it’s everyday wear.”

“This was also on the cover of Time Magazine and Vogue. It is the one costume that has been seen and copied the most. It was worn to the Met Ball.

“Back in those days, it was dressed up, but casual at the same time. It wasn’t anything like it is today. This was 1974 and we did that dress for her to wear for Vogue. It was supposed to be the ’70s. We had all the decades and I said to her, ‘What do you want to wear?’ She said, ‘I want to wear that dress with the feathers.’

“It had nothing to do with my choice. Richard Avedon loved taking photos of her. When it appeared in Time, that magazine was banned from some states because people were horrified or thrilled. After all, it was considered dirty. But you couldn’t get your hands on that the day it came out because it sold out, and that was just the beginning.”

“This was a Harry Langdon photoshoot for the 1974 album ‘Prisoner.’ We were on a real soundstage in Hollywood. They built the sets and had these muscle men in some shots, and to be honest, she was stark naked in some shots except for a few feathers and a headdress. We looked at Frazetta art, which as you know, is heroic comic strip art of the time. We were trying to come up with many different looks. I love this butterfly look because it’s so innocent and sweet, yet she is absolutely stark naked except for those beads and her wings.”

“That was classic Cher, it showed all the good parts, and Diana looked great, but Diana was pregnant with her first child. When you see that picture and you see all those ostrich feathers, they’re covering up a little bundle inside. That was a great night for me, this is classic Bob Mackie and classic Cher all-around at the 1975 Rock Music Awards.”

“Cher has been an Egyptian goddess and Cleopatra many, many times because it just happens to suit her. She was made to play Cleopatra, [though] she has never really played Cleopatra, except in those comedy sketches. But, she still could, it’s not too late.

“We did a huge number on a TV special that covered the history of women’s clothes starting with Eve, where she wore just a huge wig and high heeled shoes, that was it. We went right on through medieval times, until we got to the 1970s at the end. We shot it all with the costume changes, wig changes and a few makeup changes in less than a day. We didn’t have a lot of time. This was just a lot of fun to do.”

“It was back to the Met Gala, and at this point, we felt like veterans because we had done it before. At that point, everyone was not dressed up at the first one, but this time, it looked like a drag ball because there was so much going on.

“She looked amazing. When she came on the scene, the idea was the American girl who was blonde and had the beehive or a big flip. There were no girls with black hair or girls that had a little more nose than usual. All of a sudden, all these girls that had long black hair could say, ‘I have black hair like Cher.’

“It was interesting how the whole idea of beauty and in the United States changed, and around the world for that matter. I was amazed when I met people that had gone to school in Paris and in London and fashion school and everything, and they knew exactly who I was and who she was and what she had worn for every event.

“So, the skirt on this was simple and black. It’s one layer of fine tulle and beads. The rest is her skin showing. Anywhere that is not black is her skin. There were also the ear cuffs, which people went wild for.”

“This was one of my favorite numbers because Cher had taken her old song ‘Bang Bang’ from the 1960s and reworked it for her self-titled album, which she released in 1987. Then she performed it during the Farewell tour. The song had nothing to do with the Maori tribe, but we just did it, and it was a hard costume to do because those are tattooed bodysuits. She wore it and so did the dancers.

“It had an enormous headdress, but that was a tattooed jumpsuit with a leather cape and I just loved it. The idea was ‘What can we do with ‘Bang Bang’ so it looks different to what we had ever done before.’ She had done the American Western outfit for this, and it didn’t make any sense to do that. People went crazy for this.”

“She had this dress in two or three different colors. This was when she was inside the pearl and it would open up and she would sing ‘Love Hurts.’ Depending on the week, she would sing either that or ‘The Way of Love.’ She vocalizes every day and she goes to her voice classes. At 75-years-old, a lot of people don’t bother, but she does. And what she does is so daring. There’s never any fears or nerves. She was never intimidated by anything. There is no one like her. Others can try, but it’s not the same.”

“This always makes me laugh because it’s a little Virgin Mary with the halo. She loves this costume. She loved it so much that when she put it on for the first time and looked in the mirror, she started crying. This was worn during ‘After All’ in her Vegas residency at the Monte Carlo hotel.

“With the outfit changes between songs on stage, everything is made to go on quickly. The secret to the outfits is they open in the back and it will fall to the ground and the other dress is sitting right there for her to step into. The team will zip up the sleeve or put cuffs on. You can’t do too many accessories. It’s really just the dress which is usually a layer of tulle or chiffon, sheer chiffon. But there’s an army of women helping her out, and they’re the same group of women she knows on the road, on stage and at home. They always travel with her.”

“At the time, Cher wanted to wear this outfit so badly. I call it the seatbelt outfit. She got so nervous with the sailors there, she put on her leather motorcycle jacket and you could see anything except this little strap that made that look worse. She loved it at the time, but it made her very nervous – and it’s the only time I know she ever got that nervous.

“Of course, she had her 12-year-old son at the time playing bass guitar and his blonder head of hair in the background, and his mother is out there half-naked. She has had more costumes than anyone. There was an auction and a lady bought the outfit for $75,000. And during this tour, Cher wanted to rent it for a year, and then another year. She wore it for a year.”

“This is a bonus look that I love and was called the Queen of Unicorns outfit. I wanted her to wear it to the 2019 Met ball, I thought how campy could that be? But she was really nervous about it and we didn’t make this at all, but it’s a favorite of mine. It’s so much fun. She would have looked amazing, but we are not through yet, and you never know. It could appear one day.”