Bob Mackie: Couturier to the Stars
There are just 22 kilometers between Hollywood and Monterey Park, the town where he was born in 1940, and where he began his sequin fantasies by watching as many films as he could. “I didn’t become a costume designer because I dreamed of fashion and haute couture” he explained on the phone. “I always wanted to get into the entertainment industry, it totally fascinated me; I wanted to be in show business!” He enrolled in a design school, learnt to sew on a sewing machine that his grandmother gave him, created costumes for small, local theatre groups, and utilized his greatest skill, drawing, to building a portfolio that he would take around the whole of Los Angeles. It soon became a convincing calling card.