🔗 Share this article

After a three-decade tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its intricate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical critics who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

Today, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.

A King of Glitz

Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, far exceeding its projected value, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are pushing toward a theatrical, more spectacular, show-stopping, memorable statement.”

The Mainstream Revival

It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by singers including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across concert platforms in sequins, revealing designs and feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist a fashion expert told Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.

Pulling from Tradition

Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century pop style of crop tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.

But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, 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 covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”

The Coveted Vintage Look

For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus 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 trio of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among collectors.

“The showgirl aesthetic evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says a historian, head of special collections at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the history of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the crystals and the shine but without the exposure.”

A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas

She says this figure are central to the imagery of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still used as an logo of the city, being present at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.

The Appeal of Illusion

Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. This idea Swift references in a latest docuseries that documents the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, workouts and 149 concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.

The performer explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my entrance so I could recover before I made my entrance. You’re working hard the whole time but creating this image that it’s effortless and stunning and magical.”

Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. What better figure to turn to than these performers, who have always embodied dreams, idealism and a world where no one makes a mistake.