After a long-running stint on the iconic Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.
The King of Glitz
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his signature style, dressing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny 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 desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are striving for a theatrical, more dramatic, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across world tours in glitter, strategic openings and plumes, spotlighted against theatrical sets. A top stylist a fashion expert explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, the backup dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the late-century teen pop of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “treated as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Coveted Vintage Look
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an private amount to buy the Mackie fringed 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 fashion collectors.
“This style evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the story of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Just Style: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says this figure 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 currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
An Allure of Transformation
Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the attraction. This is a notion the singer hints at in a new documentary series that captures the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, workouts and 149 performances across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She describes her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but creating this image that it’s easy and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Who better to turn to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a world where nobody makes a mistake.
