Designed by Bob Mackie for when Tina Turner first performed at Caesars Palace and hotel nightclubs as a solo act in the late 1970s. She told Mackie that she wanted her image to be operatic. When Turner wore the garment she said: “I looked like I was about to take flight and soar — which was exactly how I felt about being on my own for the first time.”
The fashion designer first met Turner in the late 1970s, shortly after she’d left her abusive first husband Ike Turner. Mackie said that at the time, she was in search of “a different life,” and soon she was hitting the nightclub circuit as a solo star for the first time.
Before long, the two had teamed up on her wardrobe (Turner famously wore Mackie’s flame dress), with Mackie taking extra care to show off the singer's famous legs.
“You were always aware of the legs,” he said. “Sometimes, the dresses would be long, but then it would be stilt clear up to almost her waist, and that leg would come out, and she would strut around the stage,. You couldn’t beat it, really. It was unbelievable.”
He added: “Her dresses were damn short. They all usually had a sewn-in little pair of trunks inside. The legs were beautiful, and she had a great walk. She’d strut across that stage or down a runway in a big stadium. I think she generated such joy, and that’s what entertainers should do if they can.”
(Photos by Harry Langdon)
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