Following a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its intricate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and disappointed commentators who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
A Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his trademark look, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its initial estimate, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a newspaper. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more spectacular, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in glitter, revealing designs and plumes, spotlighted against camp 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 mid-century, the backup dancers fluttered giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The outcome are worlds away from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”
The Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a translucent sequined dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, 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, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls evoke fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the crystals and the glitter but without the exposure.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says showgirls are integral to the imagery of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, showing up at gatherings and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a remaining figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. It’s something Swift hints at in a latest behind-the-scenes film that shows the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling preparations, training and 149 performances across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own stage routines as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my cue so I could rest before I went on stage. One is sweating the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s effortless and beautiful and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. What better figure to turn to than such icons, who have always personified make-believe, idealism and a world where nobody misses a mark.
