YOUR PLACE BOB MACKIE BRINGS IT ALL BACK HOME.

Byline: Barbara De Witt Staff Writer

``Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I don't have sequined curtains in my home,'' says Emmy Award-winning designer Bob Mackie.

Often referred to as the sultan of sequins - a moniker inspired by his over-the-top costumes for Cher - he insists that he doesn't live that way, although he's sure Anna Nicole Smith does.

After years of designing costumes for television, ballet and Barbie dolls as well as several lines of ready-to-wear, Mackie has recently been inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. Perhaps energized by the fact he's the first designer to be selected, Mackie has turned his artistic eye to home furnishings. ``It's opulent and comfortable without the use of sequins or leopard print,'' Mackie says of his latest collection, which made its debut at the High Point, N.C., International Home Furnishings Market and is now available at local stores.

All these honors and fame - a major high for a guy who claims he wasn't lucky enough to attend a fancy art school and learned his trade at Cal Arts. Yes, after all these years, he's still modest and still striving to do his best.

So, when Rosemary Brantley, a former fashion designer who now runs the design department at the prestigious Otis School of Fashion Design in Los Angeles asked him to kick of its new lecture series called ``Inside the Mind of a Design Icon,'' he was thrilled.

``I think it was great of them to invite me, since proceeds will help provide design scholarships ... and I don't have to write a speech. It's going to be a Q&A thing, so let's hope I've got the answers,'' he says.

In a practice session this week, Mackie answered the following questions for the Daily News:

Q: Which is more difficult to design, a costume or a chair?

A: A chair is more difficult because I'm not a technical person and don't know about the innards of chair, but I know more than I used to. On the other hand, whether it's a chair or a costume, you're simply designing new fabrics for old (familiar) shapes.

Q: Do you design entire lifestyle collections like Ralph Lauren, and do you have a Bob Mackie store to sell them?

A: No, I don't have that kind of business. I do case goods (wooden furniture such as dining tables) which are manufactured by American Drew and also upholstered furniture such as sofas, chairs and chaises - I love chaises - that are made by Clayton Marcus. All of them are available at numerous L.A.-area furniture stores as well as the L.A. Mart. Although I don't design crystal or bedding, I do design chandeliers and light fixtures with lots of help from the Murray Feiss Co. And I have done dishes, but not fine china. I want people to really use them - not just once a year - so I had them made in stoneware, which can be put in the dishwasher. I've sold them on QVC, along with a line of wearable art clothing.

Q: Do you have a decorating philosophy?

A: I know people get confused because they think what I did for Cher or ``The Carol Burnett Show'' is me in real life, but I'm normal with a California casual lifestyle. So when it comes to clothing or furniture, comfort is No. 1. In regard to sofas, I try to make it easy and bigger scale for you and the dog or cats to stretch out on.

Q: So if you don't have glitz, what types of fabrics will we find in your collections?

A: Beautiful brocades and stripes. Some leather, velvet. And I admit that I have one lamp design with beaded fringe.

Q: Any decorating advice?

A: Always consider your lifestyle so you don't become one of those people with the roped-off living room that nobody gets to sit in. And don't have everything match exactly - just close enough to be happy together. On the other hand, restrain yourself with only one piece of glitz - like a beaded lampshade - or none.

Q: If you could do anything you wanted, without restrictions by the furniture-makers or worries about financial success, what would it be?

A: I'd like to do some contemporary pieces, but I know a modern orange sofa doesn't do well (in the retail world).

INSIDE THE MIND OF A DESIGN ICON

Who: Bob Mackie.

Where: California Market Center's Fashion Theatre, 110 E. Ninth St., Los Angeles.

When: 6 p.m. Friday.

Tickets: $20. Call [phone].

ARTS AND CRAFTS REDUX: Americans have never lost their love of handcrafted artistic furnishings, but most leave the artwork to others. Sheila McGraw's new series of how-to books takes away the fear of flying (in this case, painting) with easy instructions.

In ``Texture, Paint, Ornament and Mosaic Projects'' (Firefly; $14.95), McGraw shows you how to make a simple wooden chair into a gallery piece with culinary charm. First, there's a huge photo of the finished chair, then a picture of the original chair, with reader-friendly instructions and step-by-step photos on how to do everything.

She tackles stenciling, antique finishes, appliques and even bar-stool seat-coverings with such ease you'll want to run out to a yard sale to find a broken chair or table.

Other books in the collection include ``Stencil, Paint and Block Print Projects,'' ``Antique and Country Paint Projects,'' and ``Decoupage, Paint and Fabric Projects.'' No need to buy all four, as many of the projects are repeated in each book.

For more decorating ideas, see Sandra Buckingham's ``The Complete Stenciling Handbook'' (Firefly; $35). This hefty hardback is packed with advanced lessons on everything from etching glass to embossing leather. If you're up for it, the celebrated stenciler will teach you every faux fashion trick in the decorating world.

- B.D.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(1) Fashion designer Bob Mackie, known for outlandish designs worn by Cher and others, likes to keep things more casual in his furniture designs.

(2 -- 4) no caption (Book covers)