Gypsies, Tramps, And Beads

On the eve of The Cher Show’s Broadway opening, Bob Mackie reflects on dressing his most famous client—and a campy Richard Avedon shoot.

- Hamish Bowles

I was a strange child. I lived with my grandmother in a place where there weren’t any other kids, and she didn’t like me wandering around the streets, so I just stayed home and drew all day—I didn’t even know how to ride a bicycle at that point. I went to movies a lot. That’s where I learned; that was my college.

There was one little theater that played old movies, and they were showing [1934’s] Cleopatra, with Claudette Colbert. I saw that and I went, “Wow!” In the late ’40s, you didn’t see cleavage in Hollywood—it was against the code. Later, when I started doing costumes for Cher, I said to the producers, “There’s things in that movie that would be great on her—she could do all that stuff.” They’d say, “I can see her under-boob.” I said, “Well, stand her on her head—it’ll be cleavage.”

As a child, though, I never even thought that there might be a special person who designed costumes for movies. And then I went to see An American in Paris and the ballet sequence came on and I said, “Wait a minute—I want to do that.” The costumes were designed by Irene Sharaff, who was fabulous. I got to know her later—she actually came to my costume shop and had things made. She was very stylish. She wore big hats and was always smoking—she would sit at the table and smoke and smoke and smoke while everyone else was trying to sew.

When I got out of school, I washed dishes in a restaurant at night, and during the day, I would sit around at home waiting for someone to call me for a job. Finally, 20th Century Fox called. Their legendary costume designer, Jean Louis, had seen my portfolio. I’d done exactly one sketch—a rendering of a blonde lady in a beaded dress and a man in a tuxedo—and that got me every job I had for the next three years.