Today's mid-November morning may have been grey, wet and windy, but inside the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, there were only sparkles: gold, silver and all colours of the rainbow.
That was thanks to a new and momentous auction preview exhibition that is now on display, featuring iconic designs by Bob Mackie, the storied designer to pop culture icons like Cher, Tina Turner, Marilyn Monroe and more.
Bold Luxury: Bob Mackie, Stage Glamour & The Couture Edit is the next celebrity memorabilia auction to be held by Julien's Auction, the Beverly Hills-based auction house that has sold items such as Kurt Cobain's MTV Unplugged guitar and Monroe's controversial 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' nude illusion dress, which was designed by Mackie.
Among the auction's items are a slinky black beaded creation for Ann Margaret from the 70s that was worn by Sabrina Carpenter, to a sultry red sequinned bodysuit for Tina Turner.
But perhaps most striking of all is a practically perfect nude illusion bodysuit designed in 1978 for Cher, featuring trails of large iridescent sequins that fall like droplets of water, catching the light beautifully.
At 85, Mackie's designs have long been a cornerstone of celebrity fashion, from the shimmering 'naked' dresses he designed for Cher and evening gowns for Carol Burnett, to the intricate costumes he created for Las Vegas showgirl revues.
His renown has only grown higher in recent years, as pop stars Carpenter, Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift - specifically for her The Life of a Showgirl album cover - have dipped into his archives for his pieces.
But for Martin Nolan, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Julien's Auction alongside Darren Julien, however, the exhibition is particularly significant.
Born and raised in Ireland, Nolan moved to New York City and worked as a stockbroker and investment advisor at firms like JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch, winning the green card lottery and putting down roots Stateside. But to bring this exhibition exclusively to the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge is clearly a personal highlight.
"This is the only public exhibition on this world tour", he told RTÉ Lifestyle at the press preview today. "Ireland is the only place that the public get to see these pieces, and partly it's because people in Ireland actually do care, and they do come. They will show up and they're not jaded by celebrity and they're fascinated by it."
The auction has been on a tour the past while, starting at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City. It sailed across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary II with Mackie, featuring Q&As and a showing of his new documentary, Naked Illusion, and continued to the V&A in London, before rounding up with a private viewing for Ariana Grande at the Stafford Hotel in London.
Now, it'll be on display in Newbridge for two weeks, open every day and free to the public, before returning to Beverly Hills on 1 December, for the auction on the 3 December. You can peruse the 60 items from Mackie's archive on their website.
The auction is an annual event and closely watched by buyers and collectors alike. Nolan explains that last year they priced items much like they have this year: from $4,000-$6,000 for clothing and $800-$1,200 for designer sketches.
"Some of them sold for upwards of $100,000", he says.
"These are tangible items, we all need that connection. So if you don't get to meet Cher, if you don't get to meet Bob Mackie ... you could own something representing that legendary duo, and then you become the new caretaker.
"We're all nostalgic. We're looking for that connection to a different time, a younger time in our lives, a happier time, we met our partner... some milestone event surrounding this."
For Nolan, it's the stories attached to each piece that resonates the most. Gesturing to a gold and silver bodysuit Mackie designed for Tina Turner in the year's after her breakup from her abusive and controlling husband Ike Turner, he explains how Tina said to Mackie that she felt like she was ' getting her wings back'.
"He actually gave her the wings!" he says, referencing the gold wing detailing on the striking design.
"Tina's gone sadly, but this lives on. This is part of her history, it's her legacy and we're looking for that. We want to preserve that."
Preservation has become a sticking point for many fashion lovers, especially as celebrities increasingly turn toward archives for standout red carpet moments and to incorporate into their storytelling. Nolan believes this is due in a large part to a new focus on sustainability.
"Our younger, contemporary artists are way more conscious of that than back in the day", he says, adding that Mackie claimed that Carol Burnett told him he'd made 17,000 costumes for The Carol Burnett Show over 11 years.
Of course, no dress has been at the centre of this discussion more than Monroe's Mr President dress, which was worn by Kim Kardashian to the 2022 Met Gala to almost equal amounts of praise as criticism. As far as Nolan is aware, the Monroe estate were "very happy" with the move as it reintroduced the icon to a new, younger audience.
Even this one dress has a fascinating connection to Mackie's own story: it was on display in the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge in 2016, and sold by Julien's Auction to Ripley's Believe It Or Not for $4.81 million. Designed by Mackie when he was just 21 and working with designer Jean Louis, the first time he saw the dress was at the Julien's Auctions gallery in 2016.
Speaking about which item he'll be especially sad to see go, Nolan says: "I've trained myself not to become attached to any one piece."
"I get to travel with these items and talk about them and share them. The reward for me is like, I love to see people's reaction."
