Mackie and Cher a winning pair

Mel Melcon
Los Angeles Times

Bob Mackie, peering out from behind print silk crepe de chine at his studio in Los Angeles, designed Cher's costumes for her new Las Vegas show.

LAS VEGAS — It was a grand concert entrance if ever there was one: Cher at the Colosseum in Caesars Palace, descending from the ceiling like the empress of the sun. Her golden chariot might as well have been a time capsule because when she stepped out in a blindingly sparkly gold lame cape and an Egyptian headdress with an asp, she could have been 22 again. Or even 42. But Cher, who just turned 62, still can rock a Bob Mackie getup like nobody else.

Her new show is an eyeful of deliciously glittery costumes that hark back to the wonderfully tacky, pre-Celine Vegas of Liberace and feather-flocked revues. She plays the gypsy in a jingling skirt, the sultan in genie pants that are little more than ropes of gold and crystal embroidery draped across her thighs, the Indian chief in a feathered headdress and 1960s-era Cher in a Mod red minidress. Through 17 costume changes, she shares and bares.

With the possible exception of Victoria Beckham, they don't make style icons like Cher anymore. From the beginning of her career, when her stick-straight hair and bell-bottoms amounted to fringe fashion, she understood that cultivating a look was as important as cultivating a sound. She was the world's Barbie doll, a living fashion fantasy week after week on TV, who landed simultaneously on best- and worst-dressed lists. Love her or hate her, she always keeps us guessing.

"She wears everything with such ease," says Mackie, her partner in sartorial success. "Not like a drag queen."

A few of the greatest Cher-Mackie wardrobe hits are on display in glass cases outside the theater. There's the Louis XIV corset from the 1999 "Believe" tour and the red Pocahontas outfit from the mid-1970s. The handiwork on these pieces rivals haute couture.

These days, Mackie spends most of his time designing his QVC line, but his Los Angeles workroom is still a fantasy land of buttons, trims and bolts of fabric. When Cher came to him this spring, she had several characters in mind for the production, which sent him sketching.

He had just four weeks. The costumes were engineered more than designed, Mackie says. "It was like building a battleship with all the pieces and layers. It was full, long days and lots of nervousness."

Although he shopped for fabrics in New York, all the work was done in L.A., including the embroidery. "The sketching didn't take so long — it was coming up with what things were and how to do them. Still, it's a lot easier than it used to be. There are so many amazing new fabrics."

The two met on "The Carol Burnett Show." When "Sonny and Cher" was picked up as a summer replacement, Cher asked for Mackie. "I was on vacation and didn't want to come home," he says. "But I did come home, and everything changed."

Cher had as many as 20 costume changes on the show, and Mackie had only a week to prepare. "One time we dressed her like Anna Karenina, and another time, we put her in Modigliani's art studio because she looked like one of his models. She was just singing her ballads.

"Now, she's much more knowledgeable about how she wants to look."