Bob Mackie, the designer who taught drag queens how to walk, dies at 87

The Sultan of Sequins dressed Cher, Elton, Carol Burnett and generations of queens who learned glamour from watching television.

Told by Paige Turner · 14 September 2026

Bob Mackie died Monday in Palm Springs, aged 87, and if you've ever seen a drag queen walk into a room and own it, you've seen his work whether you knew his name or not.

The costume and fashion designer who dressed Cher, Elton John, Diana Ross, Carol Burnett and Tina Turner for six decades died from pneumonia, his publicist confirmed. A statement on his social media accounts said he "lived his 87 years to the fullest, fulfilling his dream of being a Fashion and Costume Designer, which is all he ever wanted to do."

He won nine Emmy Awards, a Tony, and was nominated for three Oscars. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2002. He was named a 2025 Out100 honoree. None of that captures what he actually did, which was beam a version of queer glamour into living rooms across the world every week for eleven years on The Carol Burnett Show, then do it again on The Sonny and Cher Show, and create the visual language every drag queen since has been working with, refining, or deliberately smashing.

RuPaul put it plainly: "We're all born naked, and the rest is Bob Mackie." He was called the patron saint of drag queens and his work turned up as a reference point on Drag Race so often it became a drinking game.

Mackie designed the initial sketch for Marilyn Monroe's sheer beaded "Happy Birthday Mr. President" dress when he was working for designer Jean Louis. He put Cher in the 1974 Met Gala naked dress — sheer, beaded, white feathered sleeves and skirt — that ended up on the cover of Time. He dressed her for the 1986 Oscars in the beaded spiderweb gown with the Mohawk headdress, and again in 1988 when she won best actress in a gown that was barely there. He put Elton John in a Donald Duck costume with webbed feet. He dressed Carol Burnett as Starlet O'Hara in the green curtain dress, rods and all, now in the Smithsonian.

His nicknames were the Sultan of Sequins, the Rajah of Rhinestones, the Guru of Glitter, and he earned every one of them, but sequins were a tool, not the point. "You don't try to change anybody," he told the Associated Press in 2018, "you just try to make them look better than ever."

The documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion came out in 2024. A Mackie dress Cher wore in 1975 sold at auction last year for $US101,600, twenty-five times its estimate. Zendaya wore a Mackie gown to honour Cher at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. When Taylor Swift wanted to look like a showgirl on the cover of her 2025 album, she wore Mackie originals.

By 2024, Mackie had soured on the fashion world. "You watch awards shows and say, 'Oh, cover up! Put it away! Honey, I don't need to see all of that!' It gets to be so vulgar, you don't even want to look at it any more," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I was so bored watching The Met Ball – everyone exposing everything, the same look-alike dress – I shut it off. If you've seen one Kardashian, you've seen them all. And we have seen all of them."

He told Out magazine in 2024 that working on television mattered to him because "it gives them something. You see performers look one way, and then you see them look another. It's part of the entertainment, really." To queer people navigating hard times, he said: "Just be honest with yourself. Do what you do best. Try to work your life so that it works for you in the best possible way."

Mackie was married to showgirl Lulu Porter from 1960 to 1963. Their son, make-up artist Robert Gordon Mackie Jr., died from AIDS at 35. Costume designer Ray Aghayan, Mackie's longtime partner, died in 2011.

As the Associated Press recalled, Mackie once said practicality was never a driving force in his design. "It's all about looking good and living your fantasies."

Updated 27 September 2026: the final quote is now credited to the Associated Press, which recalled it in its obituary.