Following a three-decade stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.
The King of Sparkle
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are striving for a glamorous, more dramatic, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
The Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Recently, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they danced across arena stages in sequins, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against overstated sets. A top stylist a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, the backup dancers wafted giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
These artists and other successful musicians also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of revealing tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Vintage Look
For gen Z 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 see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed 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 earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, an expert at the an academic institution, who studies the history of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still featured as an emblem of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
The Allure of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift references in a new docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, gym sessions and 149 concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own showgirl performances as “comparable to completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s easy and stunning and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a world where no one misses a mark.
