Bob Mackie has the golden touch and, in his 60-year career, has created winning looks for the world’s biggest stars – Marilyn Monroe, Cher, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, Elton John, Pink. It’s only fitting that among all his sequin, sheer and souffle designs, there’s one that he admittedly got to call his own for years.

In the new documentation Bob Mackie: Naked IllusionMackie thought about designing Cher’s controversial look for her 1989 video “If I Could Turn Back Time.” In the now-released film, Mackie called the “seatbelt” outfit – which consisted of a see-through bodystocking except for two V-shaped strips of fabric on the front and a small strip on the back over her tattooed buttocks – “vulgar”.

“We dressed her in a lot of wild, sexy clothes at different times,” Mackie told Yahoo Entertainment. “Sometimes I said, ‘You can’t wear that for long.’ The’ … an awards show or whatever, and she would respond (disappointedly), “Okay.” But she wanted to wear that. Bike shorts were included, but see-through bike shorts are really scary.”

Mackie, who had been outfitting the singer for more than a decade at this point, including for the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour and the Cher Show, said he was ready to design her – with Cher’s agreed silence.

“I said, ‘Please don’t tell anyone I designed this,'” he said with a laugh. “‘Don’t let anyone know this. “I’m embarrassed,” and she was fine. Now she admits it wasn’t so good.”

It was more than her outfit that caused a stir. Cher shot the video aboard the battleship USS Missouri with a few hundred hungry sailors as extras. While a U.S. Navy spokesperson apparently reviewed the lyrics to Cher’s song, they didn’t fully examine her wardrobe for the video until she showed up to perform. Reportedly, the storyboards presented to Navy officials showed the bare outfit, so not much needed to be done.

There was so much backlash to the video – from her outfit to performing on a warship used in World War II. After complaints, MTV banned the video from airing until after 9 p.m

Aside from Cher’s outfit, Mackie’s jaw also dropped when the singer chose to have her young son Elijah Blue Allman, then 12, play guitar in the video “with all those horny sailors on deck,” Mackie said . “I mean… you go: Pooh. And of course it played forever and we’re still seeing it.”

Over time — and many other wild outfits — Cher’s look has become more iconic than controversial.

“No one else can get away with it, I can tell you that,” Mackie said, adding, “Who really has a figure like that — and a look that no one else has?”

That wasn’t the only time one of Mackie’s designs for Cher was banned. While the “naked dress” has seen a huge resurgence in Hollywood in recent years, Cher, who appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 wearing a feathered and sequined nude illusion dress designed by Mackie and Ray Aghayan, also caused a stir.

Cher first wore the dress – made from souffle, a sheer fabric no longer used because it is highly flammable – at a Vogue photo shoot with Richard Avedon and at her first Met Gala in late 1974.

“It was a fabric that was actually against the law in this country, but Marlene Dietrich had introduced it for her clothes and we had the same people working for us as Dietrich,” Mackie explained.

As for his creation for Cher: “It’s just one of those crazy, crazy things, but it got a lot of attention.”

In 1975, one of Avedon’s photos was used for a Time cover – “Cher Glad Rags to Riches” – and received even more attention.

“It was forbidden in the South,” Mackie said of the cover. “Some people just found (the dress) shocking. You couldn’t see anything, but you thought you could. You make them think they see everything, but they see nothing.”

Today, “people still print the picture from the cover of Time magazine,” Mackie said incredulously.

Cher appears in Mackie’s documentary and opens up about her fashion hits over the years. They continued to work together and Mackie won a Tony Award for costume design on Broadway The Cher Show in 2019.

“We’ve known each other for so long,” Mackie said. “We are friends and we know we are there when (the other) needs us. It’s just the way it is.”

Some of Mackie’s designs and sketches, including several he made for Cher, will be auctioned at Julien’s Auctions on December 11th. 25 of the items belong to Cher, including the dress she wore to the 1983 Academy Awards. She also wore it during her 1979 year Cher… something special when she was on stage with Dolly Parton.

“How often do you get to do something you’ve wanted to do your whole life?” Mackie said of his long career. “Not everyone (does).”

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion plays in selected cinemas.