Fashion According to the Late, Great Tina Turner

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The late Tina Turner delivered every time she went on stage or appeared in a music video or red carpet. Especially notable style moments include: her early days as part of the Ike & Tina Turner Review, her unforgettable reinvention as a solo artist in the mid-nineties, a stint as a movie star in “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” a performance with Mick Jagger at Live Aid, countless concerts to promote her platinum albums in the 1980s and 1990s. Tina was a through and through fashion inspiration all the way up until her last concert at Sheffield Arena on May 5, 2009.

Ike Turner discovered the prim and proper 50s’ girl from Brownsville, Tennessee at one of his Ike Turner Review shows in Memphis in 1960, and immediately set about transforming Anna Mae Bullock, aka Little Ann, aka Tina Turner, into a stage presence. Ike began the stylistic process but record producer, Phil Spector, recognized Tina’s tremendous talent, and with his aid, the spotlight began to turn Tina away from Ike and to increasingly focus on Tina, the artist.

After their first hit record the Ike Turner Review was renamed “The Ike & Tina Turner Review,” and Tina’s unique look began to emerge. Although Ike had set her on the path, Tina began to stand out after she moved away from the gilded Ronettes-style gowns and kicked things up a notch, molding her own style. She began to don ultra-short dresses as well as daring slashed dresses, all with some glitter, of course.

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As time went on, she and her stylists added leather and denim to the mix. Collaborations with designer friends, Giorgio Armani and Azzedine Alaia, and later, celebrity fashion stylist, Wayne Scot Lukas, all contributed to make Tina one of rock and roll’s most exciting stage presences and a style icon in her own right. Tina’s look would change to accommodate current fashion trends, but never compromised her unique style for her over 50-year career.

Before we reveal Tina’s top ten looks of all time, a look into the star’s hair, and legendary legs, are in order, as all were key aspects of her on stage persona. Tina’s signature streaky brown, blonde hair came about because of a bleach job gone awry at a salon in St. Louis in the mid-sixties. Prior to that, she had styled her thick dark hair in updos. Ike wanted a new look for her and instructed the beauty parlor to “Get her fixed-up like Marilyn Monroe” which resulted in Tina’s newly blonde locks falling out.

The group had a performance that evening, and Tina wore a wig. The wig wasn’t blond, but over the years, she would wear some platinum blonde wigs, now and again. It was her shaggy streaky brown-blonde wig that would become her definitive signature hairstyle. Women around the world bought “Tina wigs,” none more famously than television host, Oprah Winfrey. Oprah even had Tina on her show, one time, to discuss the wig and her obsession with the style.

Tina’s stylist and visual consultant, Wayne Scot Lukas, worked with her from the mid-nineties into the next decade, and fondly remembers Tina’s wigs. Lukas says that he would walk into her room and see “50 Tina Turner wigs all lined up hanging” on a wall as she traveled on tour. She dyed and sewed her own wigs. She said nobody did it well. She’s like the rock and roll Betsy Ross. She would sit on the edge of that bed, and you’d see her with a needle and thread and scissors sewing her own wigs. It was amazing times.”

Tina’s long legs were another key part of her look, and were insured for 3.2 million dollars, according to www.nickiswift.com. These assets continued to be front and center, for the rest of her career. According to shoe designer, Donald J Pliner, who owned “RBCC” (The Right Bank Clothing Company), an upscale boutique on Rodeo Drive, Tina was a frequent customer. Pliner recalls, “Tina bought lots and lots of shoes., among them, Maude Frizon, a French shoe brand that was one of the hottest labels of the seventies.” Stilettoes and fishnets also became signature styles over the years, and the heels got higher and higher.

And now, on to some of Tina Turner’s most iconic outfits.

TINA’S TOP LOOKS

1970 – appearance on Playboy After Dark, February 3, 1970.

Even back then, Tina understood the importance of wardrobe as part of her audience appeal. She appeared in multiple crowd-pleasing outfits on every television show she was on.

She wowed the studio audience when she got on stage to perform in Hugh Hefner’s “Playboy After Dark,” in a fringed gold mini dress wearing a long side parted brown wig. Her backup singers, the also leggy Ikettes wore contrasting baby doll aqua and gold chiffon minis, and of course, high heels.

TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON Photo by Fred A. Sabine/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

1970 – appearance on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on November 25, 1970.

Tina strutted across the stage in a Pocahontas-style, fringed mini dress, also a style favored by Cher on their show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, that debuted on CBS in 1972. From then on, fringe became one of her style signatures.

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1971 – the start of Tina’s signature slits – Bob Mackie. In an interview with PEOPLE magazine, the fashion designer credits Tina with the idea of wearing shocking slits. Although he designed the sparkly white dress pictured here, she often resorted to budget shopping while in Europe.

“Tina didn’t have any money at the time; she’d buy these really cheap evening gowns in jersey [material] when she was in Europe and bring them in,” Mackie told Billboard. “I’d stand in front of the mirror with her and would just start cutting. She’d say, ‘a little higher here,’ and I’d cut and then we’d pull it open and tack it down.”

1978 – Bob Mackie’s “fire dancer” costume – Tina was getting back on her feet and beginning her comeback as a solo artist. One of these events was her appearance in a nightclub act. Like her lavish feathered cape, the star herself had just walked through the fire and was beginning to rise again, phoenix like after leaving Ike in 1976.

1983 – What’s Love Got to Do with It was Tina’s eighth, and most famous solo studio album thus far, also served as the soundtrack for the 1993 Tina Turner biographical film released by Touchstone Pictures that same year. The film is a visual feast of the singer’s outfits throughout the course of her long career.

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1984 –All white was also sexy, accessorized with a black leather tie and shorter shaggy streaky hair, and of course, high heels. This more buttoned-up look that Tina wore on tour put the attention squarely on her unforgettable voice. One of her off duty looks was a fitted YSL pantsuit, also white.

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1985 Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome – Tina played “Auntie Entity,” the film’s primary antagonist, alongside “Max,” played by Mel Gibson, in another installment of what would become one of the most watched post-apocalyptic dystopian films of all time. Her outfits were created by Australian designer, Norma Moriceau, who was adept at making inexpensive materials look top of the line.

Additionally, her song, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome),” was the hit theme song to the 1985 film, written for her by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle. Tina’s silver chainmail dress reportedly weighed an astonishing 79 pounds. She recycled the dress 30 years later and wore a similar (less weighty) version to perform in Madison Square Garden on December 1, 2008, just shy of her seventieth birthday. The 2008 version was classic Tina style, strongly resembling the black number she wore decades earlier on Johnny Carson.

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1985 The “Private Dancer” tour – the acid washed denim jacket, black leather skirt, fishnet tights, and black stilettos became a favorite of hers onstage and in music videos. It was at this time that she began to wear designs by Giorgio Armani and Azzedine Alaia. The latter is credited for dressing her for album covers, music videos, and red carpets.

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1995 – Silver sequin dress. The dress was a collaboration between Gianni Versace and stylist, Wayne Scot Lukas. Tina wore it while performing on stage at the start of her German Tour in Munich Olympic Hall, on May 30, 1995. The “dress,” was a top and skirt combo, covered in silver Swarovski crystals. The outfit was immortalized through technology at Miami Art Basel, when Lukas created a non-fungible token which was auctioned off by company ViciNFT on November 30, 2021.

According to a report from Page Six, the NFT included 111 images of model, Kara Young, modelling the dress (the first person wear it in 29 years). There were also original sketches and notes from Lukas and Versace’s collaboration, as well as a chapter from Lukas’ memoir about the origins of the dress, titled “Simply the Test.”