Bob Mackie Almost Didn’t Dress Cher!

Could you imagine a world where Cher isn’t dressed to the nines in a Bob Mackie ensemble? Well apparently that was almost a reality. 

Costume designer Bob Mackie was hesitant about dressing the star, whom he initially dubbed “New Age cave woman” when they first met on The Carol Burnett Show in the 1960s.

He obviously went on to style the icon for decades after that. 

“Cher was sort of goth-looking at the time and looked like some kind of New Age cave woman,” Bob reiterated at the 92nd Street Y with fashion insider Fern Mallis, according to Page Six. “But she cleaned up, and looked so cute in pigtails, and had an amazing figure.”

He later reflected, “I had made this beaded gown for Carol on the show, and Cher saw it and said wistfully, ‘I’d just love to have a beaded gown one day, but we’re kind of low on money.’” 

Still, while the designer’s creative relationship with Cher is famous, he doesn’t feel indebted to her, having declined to do the costumes for Cher’s 2014 Dressed To Kill Tour because her request was too last minute.

“People were saying, ‘How dare he’ . . . I kept telling her no and she cried,” he said. “I’m in touch with clients when they need clothes. I never want to be their best friend. I don’t want to sit at the end of the bed and hear all their woes.”