After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and disappointed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A Sultan of Glitz
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his trademark look, clothing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a media outlet. “Today's artists are striving for a glamorous, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift isn't alone. This year, showgirl references have been adopted by singers including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, cut-outs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “used as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who studies the story of showgirls. “Currently it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas
She says this figure are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, being present at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Illusion
The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea Swift alludes to in a recent behind-the-scenes film that shows the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, workouts and numerous performances across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own stage routines as “comparable to running a marathon in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my moment so I could rest before I went on stage. You’re perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Is there anyone better to turn to than showgirls, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a realm where no one makes a mistake.
