Bob Mackie, who died September 14 at 87, is being remembered largely for the string of extravagant looks he built with Cher over six decades. But that partnership, however famous, was only one part of a career that shaped American entertainment fashion across television, theater, ready-to-wear, and home goods.
Mackie's professional foundation was built on "The Carol Burnett Show," where he served as costume designer for the program's full eleven-year run starting in 1967. It was steady, high-volume work: Mackie was often designing dozens of costumes a week for sketches, musical numbers and recurring characters, a pace that trained him to build looks fast without sacrificing craft. That relationship also produced what he frequently called his most enduring creation, a green velvet "curtain dress" complete with a working brass curtain rod across the shoulders, worn by Burnett in a 1976 "Gone With the Wind" parody. The original costume now belongs to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Mackie later designed costumes for the Burnett spinoff "Mama's Family" and the 1993 television adaptation of "Gypsy."
