After a three-decade stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to dwindling audience numbers and critical critics who labeled it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A Master of Sparkle
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his signature style, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a newspaper. “Today's artists are striving for a theatrical, more dramatic, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
The Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across arena stages in glitter, cut-outs and feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, the backup dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque 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 preceded this trend.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
A Coveted Retro Style
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls inspire fond memories for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the crystals and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Style: An Icon of the City
Chung says this figure are central to the imagery of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an emblem of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glamour,” she says.
The Appeal of Illusion
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift alludes to in a new behind-the-scenes film that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and numerous concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She recalls her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could rest before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but crafting this image that it’s easy and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. What better figure to turn to than showgirls, who have always personified fantasy, perfection and a realm where nobody falters.
