Bob Mackie sometimes wishes he could turn back time.
The costume designer, who first dressed Cher in 1967, has created some of the singer’s most iconic looks over the years. However, there is one outfit that still makes him blush decades later.
The 84-year-old admitted to Page Six that when Cher slipped into her skimpy sheer bodysuit for 1989’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” he urged the star, “Please don’t tell anyone I had anything to do with this because I don’t really approve.” Mackie stressed it was Cher who wanted to strip down and make a bold statement for the music video.
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“This is not family viewing,” he told the performer, 78.
Cher shot the video on board USS Missouri in front of cheering sailors. The outlet noted the video, which showed Cher’s tattooed bottom, sparked controversy.
“Playing the bass guitar is her 12-year-old son [Elijah Blue] – there with her whole being out and everything else!” Mackie recalled to the outlet.
Mackie first dressed Cher when she was a guest on “The Carol Burnett Show.” At the time, he was immediately charmed by her.
“She was adorable,” said Mackie. “She looked like Audrey Hepburn’s younger sister at that point. Her hair in little pigtails, a little yellow sundress.”
When he dressed her up, Mackie said he saw potential.
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“I thought I could do anything on her — she’ll look amazing,” he said. “She could be anything she wanted to be.”
Still, Mackie said he was not on board with Cher wearing what he called “the seatbelt outfit,” which was paired with a leather motorcycle jacket. He noted that Cher wanted to rock the look “badly.”
“There were certain pieces that I was talked into doing,” Mackie previously told Fox News Digital. “Even now, I’ll go, ‘Oh my God, why did I say OK to that?’ But when it comes to design, it’s all about your client. You try to please them but also try to protect them and enhance their look.
“The one particular piece we always laugh about is Cher when she was on the big battleship for the song ‘Turn Back Time.’ She’s out with all these sailors in this sheer biker outfit with a big strip up the crotch.”
Mackie said the look was “so vulgar” that he did not tell anyone he had anything to do with it.
“I remember shaking my head and going, ‘Oh, no,’” said Mackie. “Cher wanted to wear it, but oh, it was too much! And then she had her 12-year-old son playing bass in the band, which made it even worse than all those sailors around her.”
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According to Mackie, even Cher got “very cold feet” – at first.
“She actually put on her biker jacket because she felt so naked,” he said. “But it became a popular video, to say the least. She has more confidence than anybody, but on that day, she kind of lost it on that one. She wasn’t used to being around that many sailors all screaming and hollering for her.”
Mackie felt the leather jacket made the costume look “more vulgar from the waist down.”
“It was just sheer with just one little crotch piece in black,” he said. “But people are still talking about it, I guess. [And] Cher is completely comfortable in these kinds of outfits. That’s why they work. She doesn’t pose or do any of that. She just wears them like they’re normal clothes, which still makes me laugh.”
Mackie told Variety that the costume was sold at auction for $75,000. That did not stop Cher from wanting to rock it once more. For a tour, she went on to rent it for a year.
