Following a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and critical critics who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
A Master of Sequins
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its initial estimate, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks 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, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across concert platforms in glitter, cut-outs and plumes, illuminated against overstated sets. A top stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from Tradition
Modern stars and other successful musicians also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The outcome are worlds away from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Retro Look
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a translucent beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, 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, the singer wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Just Style: An Icon of the City
The expert says the showgirl image are key to the identity of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, being present at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Escape
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the attraction. This idea Swift hints at in a new behind-the-scenes film that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, training and 149 performances across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
The performer recalls her own stage routines as “like completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the performance area from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my cue so I could rest before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s easy and beautiful and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to turn to than these performers, who have always personified make-believe, perfection and a realm where nobody falters.
