After a three-decade stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, famous for its intricate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Master of Sparkle
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are pushing toward a show-stopping, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, grand statement.”
A Mainstream Revival
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 vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in sequins, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the mid-century, the backup dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Pulling from Tradition
Modern stars and other successful musicians also take inspiration from historical entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 1990s era teen pop of short shirts and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are on board with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “treated as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
A Coveted Retro Look
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among collectors.
“This style evoke a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, head of special collections at the a Las Vegas university, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas
Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still used as an logo of the city, showing up at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Allure of Escape
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. It’s something the singer alludes to in a recent docuseries that shows the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, workouts and 149 concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my entrance so I could recover before I performed. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. What better figure to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented fantasy, perfection and a universe where no one makes a mistake.
