After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
The Master of Glitz
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to pop royalty. Recently, a “see-through” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, far exceeding its initial estimate, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “Today's artists are striving for a theatrical, more spectacular, show-stopping, grand statement.”
The Musical Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by singers including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across world tours in glitter, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The outcome are worlds away from the 90s Britney Spears era of crop tops and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently Taylor Swift.”
The Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show 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 collectors.
“This style bring about a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says a historian, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the history of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the sophistication, the crystals and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Symbol of the City
She says this figure are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still used as an symbol of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift alludes to in a new docuseries that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, gym sessions and countless concerts across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer describes her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could recover before I performed. One is working hard the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s effortless and stunning and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for escapism. Who better to look to than showgirls, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a universe where nobody falters.
