By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The upcoming Barbie movie is testimony to the star power of toy brand Barbie, but it was designer Bob Mackie who made Barbie a star in the first place.
That’s the argument of Hollywood Reporter, the venerable film industry publication, which said in a recent article that the legendary American designer was a primary reason for the brand’s success.
Mackie first became aware of the now famous Barbie when the almost foot tall doll debuted at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York. From the beginning, Barbie was marketed as a teenage fashion model, and was based on the German Bild Lilli doll that Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler had seen during her travels to Europe.
At the time, Mackie was studying costume design at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, after which he went on to become a wildly successful career in fashion, and also became known as the “designer to the stars.” Now 84-years-old, Mackie famously designed now iconic outfits for many of the greatest stars of the 1960s right up to today. Thanks for his ability to see instantly what kind of designs would look best on various stars, Mackie also developed multi-decade relationships with major stars like Cher, Tina Turner, Carol Burnett and … with the 11.5 inch tall Barbie.
Ironically, Mackie told Hollywood Reporter, he was not very impressed when he first saw Barbie. “I didn’t think she was very fashionable,” he said of the doll, who originally sported a simple black-and-white Chevron swimsuit, hoop earrings and a blond ponytail.
But that would change, as Mackie and Mattel entered in to a long term relationship in which Mackie created 47 different dolls for the toymaker, helping her become a Hollywood A-Lister like many of the other icons he worked with. Mattel might have created Barbie, but Bob Mackie made her famous,” said Hollywood Reporter writer Evan Nicole Brown.
The relationship between Mackie and Mattel didn’t begin until the late 1980s, when Mackie was already a star in his own right. He was famous for dressing celebrities like Judy Garland and Tina Turner, but also designed elaborate or sometimes hilarious costumes for the The Sonny & Cher Show, the Carol Burnett Show, and Mitzi. He even drew up the design for the dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang Happy Birthday to US President John F. Kennedy, an outfit that remains perhaps the most famous dress in modern history.
“There are fashion designers, but they can’t do costumes,” said Burnett, who estimates that Mackie created 17,000 costumes for her iconic CBS variety show. “And then there are costume designers that don’t do fashion. But Bob does it all. He’s the whole ball of wax.”
Mackie earned nine Emmy Awards and three Oscar nominations, and by 1982 had launched his own ready-to-wear collection. Eight years later, Mackie turned his attention to Barbie, using his innate ability to create his first creation in 1990—the limited edition Gold Barbie, featuring a long blond ponytail, a midriff-bearing top, a cascading skirt of golden sequins and a feather boa.
Hollywood Reporter notes the fact that “…the doll seemed to prefigure Madonna’s nearly identical look on tour shortly after only confirmed Mackie’s uncanny feel for the zeitgeist.”
But Mackie also wanted to move beyond just dressing Barbie, and get involved in designing the doll itself. “All American girls had blond hair at that point in time,” he pointed out. “Once we started doing all different kinds of hair colors and [lengths], it was a way of making Barbie anybody and looking any way she wanted to look.”
That really transformed Barbie from a child’s plaything into a cultural icon. In fact, while I have the fashion sense of a Neanderthal, even I have my own Barbie fashion story. Years ago, when I owned a tech company, I was in New Orleans for a convention, and rented out a house for myself and my co-workers. One of the rooms was lined with dozens of fashion collectible Barbies, still in the box, most of them by Bob Mackie, who I had never heard of at the time.
Having never seen a true collectible Barbie fashion doll like that before, we were blown away by the sophistication of the design and the intricacy of the execution. It’s probably the first time I really understood the attraction of toy collectibles.
And while some of those dolls were designed by others, since Mattel also worked with Oscar de la Renta, Versace, and others, Mackie was the first to design the doll itself. “Not just the fashion, but he was involved with the whole look of the doll, from the hair to the face,” said Bill Greening, principal designer and Barbie brand historian at Mattel.
Greening also noted that Mackie was the man who transformed Barbie into a more sophisticated version of the doll.
“When Mattel launched a closed-mouth version of the superstar sculpt, it debuted on the Bob Mackie Neptune Fantasy doll [in 1992], and so that became known as the ‘Mackie sculpt,’ ” says Greening. “It’s a beloved sculpt with Barbie collectors.”
Mackie’s maximalist aesthetic ensured that Barbie could mature without becoming staid. “Mackie is all about [being] over-the-top in the most glamorous way,” says Greening.
Mackie also refused to cut corners, so his Barbies were essentially wearing haute couture in miniature. “I was a real costume designer,” Mackie told the Hollywood Reporter. And I had no desire to make her look like the bookkeeper or the airline stewardess. This is more fantasy-oriented. She could be anything we wanted her to be.”
The collaboration really took off when Mattel smartly suggested Mackie work on a Barbie outfit resembling those worn by Cher, who also became known as a global fashion icon thanks to her own work with Mackie. The resulting doll was the first to be based on Mackie’s work with Hollywood stars, and it became an instant but enduring hit with collectors. He followed up with Barbies based on singer Diana Ross and comedian Carol Burnett, who later said she had hundreds of requests from people asking for autographs on the packaging.
Today, Mattel sells millions of Barbies a year, and Greening says much of the reason for the doll’s popularity is due to Mackie’s designs. “Whether we’re doing embroidery or sequins or glitter … we’re really trying to capture that Mackie magic in Barbie scale,” says Greening, who personally worked with the designer beginning with the Cher-based Barbies.
And it appears Mackie is far from done with his relationship with Barbie. Just last year Mackie and Mattel created the Barbie Holiday Angel Doll, which of course is sold out, and now only available for collectors bidding on various collectibles sites.
It’s worth noting for those in the licensing industry that Bob Mackie and his team continue to turn out designs and product lines, and according to their COO Marc Schwarz, the company is particularly keen on working with companies in the metaverse, those in the Direct to Retail space, with pet suppliers (as Bob apparently just loves animals), and in particular with licensing partners in Canada, where Mackie had previously worked with a number of retailers and fashion houses over the years.
To connect with Bob Mackie Design Group on licensing, you can reach Schwarz by email at marc.bmdg@gmail.com
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