Cher’s pointed fashion choice for Hollywood’s biggest night in 1986 made for a moment never to be forgotten.
In the documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion, the iconic singer, 78, looks back at her outfit for the 1986 Academy Awards. Famed designer Mackie recalls how he came to be involved in the creation of memorable ensemble, noting it resulted from one fact: “She was pissed off.”
“Because I didn’t get nominated for a movie that everyone thought I would actually win [Mask], but I didn’t get nominated, and they thought I wasn’t serious,” Cher explains in her own retelling of what went down.
“I didn’t dress like a serious actress, and I had… my boyfriends were strange. So I decided, I had this idea in my mind.”
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Mackie recalls, “She said, ‘I’m giving out this award, and they haven’t seen me look like I used to look.’ Because she had been making movies and these movies where she was playing kind of down and dirty characters. Silkwood and you know, she wasn’t glamorous, so they hadn’t seen her get all dressed up.”
He notes that for Cher, “to get dressed up didn’t mean her putting on a pretty dress. It meant, you know, a good outfit. And I had my sketch pad, so I started drawing. And I drew a little bit because I knew I probably wouldn’t see her for a month or so, so I had to get it all moving.”
Cher recalls being interested in “big feathers,” adding, “I said, ‘I just want—,’ and he said, ‘Don’t say anything else.’ We had a short time with each other too.”
Mackie continues, laughing: “I said, ‘Should it have a loin cloth?’ And she said, ‘Ooh yeah, I want a loin cloth.’ ”
Cher was excited to see the design come to life, and knew she hit her mark when she saw people’s reactions throughout the night. She wore a black jewel-encrusted bralette, a matching low-rise side-slit skirt, thigh-high black boots and an embroidered shawl. The look was made complete by her voluminous feather headpiece.
“I was coming around and Jane Fonda was coming around, and she looked at me and said, ‘Cher, please wait until I get back to my seat, okay, before you come out. Please, I can’t wait. I want to see everybody’s reaction,’ ” she recalls.
“And I walked out and I said, ‘As you can see, I did receive my academy booklet on how to dress like a serious actress.’ And it was kind of my, you know, my you-know-what moment… My ‘f— you’ moment to the Academy because, you know, all you have to judge me on is my work, not my life.”
While Cher was exhilarated, Mackie says that wasn’t everyone’s reaction when Fonda introduced her to present the award for best supporting actor.
“When she first appeared at the Oscars with her big mohawk and her bare midriff, giving an award to [Cocoon star] Don Ameche, people were horrified. Like, ‘That’s not fashion.’ They were just horrified.”
Cher would go on to win the best actress Oscar two years later for Moonstruck.
Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion is now playing in select theaters.
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