Following a long-running run on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its elaborate costumes created by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
The Sultan of Sequins
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Recently, a “see-through” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are striving for a glamorous, more theatrical, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by singers including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against camp sets. A top stylist her creative director explained to a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference classic entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century pop style of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl renaissance. A former performer, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Look
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed 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, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls evoke a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says an archivist, head of special collections at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the story of showgirls. “Currently it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Las Vegas
Chung says this figure are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Appeal of Illusion
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. It’s something Swift alludes to in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, gym sessions and numerous concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She describes her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my cue so I could recover before I went on stage. You’re perspiring the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s simple and stunning and dreamlike.”
Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. Who better to turn to than these performers, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a realm where nobody misses a mark.
