In the just-released music video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” the lead track of Taylor Swift’s new album The Life of a Showgirl, Swift struts through the decades, placing herself in the (often perilously high-heeled) shoes of glitzy leading ladies through the ages. She’s a Shakespearean heroine, a Busby Berkeley dancer, Marilyn Monroe, a pop star, and more, showcasing how our culture has always been obsessed with some beautiful woman or another. And no one knows more about dressing those fascination-worthy women than legendary costume designer Bob Mackie.
Mackie, who turned 86 earlier this year, has dressed legends such as Cher, Tina Turner, and Mitzi Gaynor, draping them in his specialty sequins, beads, and crystals, decking them with enough feather plumes to make an aviary jealous. The designer single-handedly caused worldwide shortages of Swarovski crystals—twice—while building his dazzling creations for the Las Vegas revue Jubilee!, which opened in 1981 and ran for nearly 35 years, and again for The Cher Show, which opened on Broadway in December 2018. Sure, he scooped every glimmering stone from Swarovski, but it was worth it: “It’s good, though,” he tells Vanity Fair over Zoom, smiling. “I got a Tony.”
It’s only natural that Swift, who sang on 2022’s “Bejeweled” that “I can still make the whole place shimmer,” would seek out the work of the best showgirl costume designer in the world when she began shooting the promo photos for The Life of a Showgirl. In several of the album’s cover photographs, Swift is wearing archival Mackie creations from Jubilee!, perhaps borrowed from past collaborator Dita von Teese, swathed in rhinestones and nude illusion netting, haloed by feather headdresses.
“It’s the last thing you expect, really,” Mackie says of first spotting his work taking center stage in Swift’s photos. He hadn’t yet heard songs from the new album when speaking with VF, but was awed by the singular way Swift was able to grab attention: “Every new show that comes on the television, just having it on in the background [today], talks about this new album.”
Mackie, who has been called the Sultan of Sequins and the Baron of Beading, mentions that he’s been in the Costume Designers Guild for nearly 70 years, and has witnessed the apparent death and inevitable rebirth of the showgirl several times over.
“I was only 22 when I quit art school and went over to Paramount and got the job and [Academy Award-winning costume designer] Edith Head asked me, she says, ‘Do you know how to do strippers?’” he says. “The ladies who drew for her only drew little costumes, which would be a coat and a dress that matched, or a suit. Those women were beautiful artists. They just didn’t do that.”
And so began a dazzling (literally) career on stage and screen, becoming the go-to costumer for stars like Turner and Cher especially, and in later years collaborating frequently with performers like Pink. He recalls Swift as “a little girl, the fairy princess that lives down the street.”
Things, obviously, have changed.
“I had no idea that she was that tall and statuesque,” he says, calling Swift’s 5-foot-10 stature “really showgirl height.”
Now, a new generation of showgirls is looking to the past, with the latest crop of talent donning his creations to build their own future legacies. Miley Cyrus wore a Mackie look on the red carpet of the 2024 Grammys, then another archival Mackie beaded gown to perform “Flowers” on the show. At this year’s Grammys, Sabrina Carpenter—who is featured on the title track of Swift’s new album—wore archival and replica Mackie onstage and to the afterparty, donning a replica of a Jubilee! piece that had been worn by Britney Spears, and a dress from the ‘70s originally made for Cher. The list goes on, but the theme is clear: The concept of the showgirl is timeless, and Mackie is synonymous with showgirls.
As for Mackie, he’s loving the resurgence, and sees echoes of those showgirls of the past in the current generation.
“They’re all the same formula or recipe,” he says. “A lot of them were children to start with, when they went off to Disney to train and they were little girls, and cute little girls, but now all of a sudden they’re hot mamas, dressed to the nines, and it’s just the craziest thing ever. And they have, I love it, and they have so much knowledge. They know about lighting, they know about makeup, they know about everything you need to know. And I always say those girls were born singing and dancing and telling jokes as they came out of the womb, because it’s just unbelievable.”
Swift has that magnetism too. The key to successfully donning one of his looks, he says, wearing it as it’s meant to be worn, isn’t about body type or a certain posture.
“It’s being confident,” Mackie says. “It’s knowing what it is, after you’ve rehearsed for you know, the rehearsals go on forever before the shows ever open, right? You get that many women on stage at one time coming down a staircase that starts at the top of the theater, all the way down, and people just sit there with their mouths wide open. They can’t believe it.”
As surprised as Mackie claims to be by the resurgence of interest in his work, the fascination with his creations is as enduring as that of the showgirl.
“When Cher went off the air on TV and started doing movies, I said, ‘Oh God, I don’t have to do anything like that again,’” he says. “And then all of a sudden, it all started coming back, because the children were looking on the internet and seeing pictures of people dressed like that, and all of us, we started getting phone calls. So I’m like, okay!”
“But do you like that?” Joe McFate, his longtime design director asks, sitting next to him.
Mackie’s answer comes quickly: “I love it.”
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