Following a 31-year run on the iconic Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and critical commentators who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
A King of Sequins
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his trademark look, outfitting everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a publication. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
The Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Her fashion curator 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 1950s, the backup dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference classic performances, including vaudeville and dance line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl renaissance. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “treated as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Retro Look
For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created 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, the singer wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says a historian, an expert at the an academic institution, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the crystals and the shine but without the nudity.”
A Than Just Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says this figure are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, appearing at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the allure. This is a notion Taylor Swift alludes to in a new docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous performances across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She describes her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to start early for my moment so I could recover before I went on stage. You are perspiring the whole time but creating this image that it’s easy and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to emulate than these performers, who have always represented fantasy, idealism and a world where no one falters.
