Unless you’ve been living under a rock for, I don’t know, your entire life, you know that Cher is an indisputable pioneer.
She’s a fashion icon, a Twitter aficionado, a sneaky C-Span calling American citizen, as well as a legendary singer and actress. I could go on, but we’ve got a story to get to.
In a new video, Cher sat down with Vogue to look back on 22 of her most fabulous looks, spanning from 1965 to today, and shared all kinds of interesting tidbits about how some of her most spectacular looks came together.
From Sonny Bono’s “willingness” to wear anything Cher told him to, to being the first woman on TV to show her belly button, and wearing outlawed fabrics to the Met Gala, the video is an intimate look at just some of the ways Cher has used fashion throughout her career to push boundaries and break barriers.
Flipping to her controversial 1986 Oscars gown, Cher said that it was one of her favourite looks.
“I came to Bob with an idea,” Cher recalled, referring to Bob Mackie, her longtime friend and designer.
“I said I want to have a mohawk, [but] that was not actually Indian. I want it to be so over-the-top that it’s next week. The beautiful shawl was cashmere. I loved the whole thing.”
Noting that she her then-boyfriend Joshua Donen “nearly passed out” when she emerged from her bedroom with the outfit on, she smiled. “God bless him,” she said.
“I had the idea mostly because the Academy didn’t really like me,” Cher continued. “They hated the way I dressed and that I had young boyfriends so they thought I wasn’t serious. So I came out and said, ‘as you can see I got my handbook on how to dress like a serious actress’.”
“My style was pretty much what I was feeling at the moment, no matter what anyone else was doing,” she finished.
“I didn’t pay too much attention.”