After a long-running run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
The Sultan of Sequins
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “New stars are pushing toward a theatrical, more dramatic, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
The Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and sparkly headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She isn't alone. This year, showgirl references have been adopted by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across arena stages in sequins, cut-outs and plumes, spotlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, the backup dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the 1990s era teen pop of revealing tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are on board with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Vintage Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a semi-sheer beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star 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, Carpenter wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
She says showgirls are key to the imagery of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, showing up at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
An Allure of Transformation
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This is a notion Taylor Swift hints at in a new documentary series that captures the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, workouts and numerous shows across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own stage routines as “like running a marathon in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my moment so I could recover before I made my entrance. You’re sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than these performers, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a realm where no one falters.
