Cher

Career & style

Cher became widely known in 1965 through Sonny & Cher and I Got You Babe, while also building a solo singing career. Television, film and concert performance expanded the settings in which audiences encountered her. Her professional history therefore offers more than a sequence of hit records: it also records changing ways of presenting a performer on screen and on stage.

Fashion plays a visible role through elaborate stagewear, changing hairstyles and wigs. Long, straight, center-parted hair became one widely recognized image, but it is only one part of a much broader visual range. Look at the way decoration frames movement and how a headdress changes the silhouette. A photograph’s performance context matters as much as the garment when tracing the relationship between costume and celebrity.