After a three-decade tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! gave one last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its elaborate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, nearly ten years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
A Master of Sequins
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are striving for a show-stopping, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across world tours in sequins, strategic openings and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of crop tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But some critics are convinced with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Classic Style
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls evoke nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of the City
The expert says this figure are key to the imagery of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still used as an logo of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining figure of Las Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the appeal. This idea Taylor Swift references in a recent documentary series that shows the behind-the-scenes action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, workouts and 149 performances across dozens of cities, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer describes her own nights in the spotlight as “like extreme physical exertion in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could rest before I went on stage. One is working hard the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the chaos of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to turn to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a world where no one misses a mark.
