Bob Mackie, who died at 87, spent more than half a century transforming the act of dressing performers into something closer to architecture — a discipline where beads, feathers, and light were tools of communication as much as adornment. From Marilyn Monroe to Beyoncé, he clothed artists who understood that presence begins before the first note is sung. His passing closes a chapter in the long conversation between fashion and performance, though the vocabulary he invented will continue to be spoken.