Bob Mackie Says No One Dresses Like Cher: 'Kardashians Can Wear Wild Stuff But It's Not the Same'

Growing up in suburban Los Angeles in the '40s, Bob Mackie went to the movies every week. "I always knew what I wanted to do," he says. "But I knew I was in trouble when my parents gave me a catcher's mitt for Christmas. Then my good aunt gave me a jewelry-making kit. I made a few pairs of earrings, and that was that." His future was written.

Now 82, Mackie is one of maybe two costume designers (the other being Sex & the City's Patricia Field) whose name is as recognizable as their work — and whose work shaped pop culture as much as the actors wearing the costumes. Yet the king of sequins, winner of nine Emmys and a Tony, and subject of a new book, The Art of Bob Mackie (out Nov. 16), remains humble. "I'm not a singer," he says with a shrug. "I'm not a dancer. I don't fly on wires."

It was 1951's An American in Paris that first got him thinking about a showbiz career. "I thought it was a nice little movie, and then the ballet came, and I went, 'Whoa, look at that!' " he tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. But it was his relationship with Cher that would define it. Working together on everything from her TV shows to the more recent The Cher Show on Broadway, the two have changed fashion.

"Nobody was allowed to even design a halter dress until Cher started wearing them on Sonny & Cher [in the ' 70s], and then all of a sudden they were in everybody's collection," Mackie says. "And then girls were showing way more skin than they should have, because Cher was showing more skin than she should have. But she looked good in it."

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Mackie and Cher forged a designer-muse relationship akin to Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn. But his influence did not stretch the entirety of Cher's career, Mackie points out. "I think at a point [in the '80s], she got kind of tired of being, you know, just attached at the hip to me. And so she started wearing, uh, the usual, run of the mill, rock and roll girl stuff onstage, you know, the leather skirt or the bustier, maybe a biker jacket. We spoiled her audience, you know?" He laughs. "They got used to other stuff." But they certainly reunited, with Mackie winning a Tony in 2019 for the Broadway hit The Cher Show.

"To this day, nobody else can do it like she does," says Mackie, acknowledging many have tried to capture the over-the-top looks he created for Cher. "I mean, the Kardashians can wear all this wild stuff, but it's not the same. These are beautiful women, but you have to have that little thing in your brain, that little sense of humor, that you're wearing it because it's fun to wear, not because it makes you look so fabulous, you know? It's partly the wit," he says.

"But I don't think that's the whole thing. I think also you can't be intimidated. If you're intimidated by what you're wearing, you're not gonna pull it off at all and you're not going to be successful."

It has, at times, seemed as though Kim Kardashian West was actually wearing a Bob Mackie gown. (The reality star dressed up as the singer for Halloween in 2017.) But Mackie says no. "She has, you know, her own special designer person who line-for-line copies a lot of those clothes. And sometimes they're bead-for-bead exactly the same." They are not Mackie's gowns purchased second hand, he insists. "She's had it copied. She wouldn't fit into Cher's clothes. She's beautiful, but, you know, she couldn't wear Cher's clothes. And Cher couldn't wear hers!"

There is, however, another of Mackie's very famous muses who can, in fact, wear Cher's clothes. Carol Burnett. "At that point in time, like in the '70s, early '80s, whatever, they had the exact same measurements: the same figure, same height."

Now living full-time in Palm Springs, Mackie is still relevant on the red carpet (recently Bernadette Peters rewore one of his classic designs from the '80s to the Tony Awards) and busy working (he's designing a collectible figurine of Ella Fitzgerald).

He's still judging a little too. Celebrities, reality stars, and even some folks on the sidewalk. "Nowadays, I get a little undone about what some people wear in public," he says.

The Art of Bob Mackie, out Nov. 16, is available for pre-order now.