After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Sultan of Sparkle
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his signature style, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a media outlet. “Today's artists are pushing toward a theatrical, more dramatic, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and plumes, highlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert told Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant feathered fans.
Drawing from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Retro Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at gatherings and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Escape
Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the allure. This is a notion Taylor Swift hints at in a recent docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, gym sessions and countless shows across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own stage routines as “comparable 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 platform from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could rest before I went on stage. You are working hard the whole time but creating this image that it’s effortless and stunning and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Who better to turn to than these performers, who have always embodied make-believe, flawlessness and a realm where nobody falters.
