Bob Mackie, who died at 87, understood something fundamental about the relationship between a performer and their public: that clothing, at its most powerful, is not adornment but transformation. For decades, his sequined and feathered creations gave voice to a kind of glamour that refused to be modest, dressing icons like Cher and Marilyn Monroe in silhouettes that matched the scale of their presence. He worked at the intersection of fashion, theater, and television, and in doing so shaped how an entire generation understood spectacle itself.