Following a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The extravaganza, famous for its ornate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and critical reviewers who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
A Sultan of Sequins
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his trademark look, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
The Mainstream Revival
It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across concert platforms in glitter, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Pulling from Tradition
Modern stars and other hitmakers also draw on classic performances, including burlesque and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 90s pop style of crop tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are on board with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Vintage Style
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a translucent beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an private amount to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“This style evoke a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, a curator at the an academic institution, who researches the legacy of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
She says the showgirl image are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift alludes to in a new behind-the-scenes film that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, workouts and numerous performances across dozens of cities, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You’re working hard the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s simple and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. What better figure to emulate than showgirls, who have always personified fantasy, perfection and a realm where no one misses a mark.
