After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and critical reviewers who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
A Sultan of Sparkle
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his signature style, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, far exceeding its initial estimate, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, grand statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. 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 rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. A top stylist her creative director told Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Pulling from the Past
These artists and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century performances, including classic theater and ensemble references. The final look are vastly different from the late-century teen pop of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are on board with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an catch-all phrase encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Coveted Classic Look
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent embellished dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, 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 series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“This style evoke fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, an expert at the an academic institution, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says this figure are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Allure of Illusion
Nancy Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. It’s something Swift alludes to in a recent docuseries that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, training and 149 performances across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own showgirl performances as “comparable to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my moment so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this image that it’s effortless and stunning and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Who better to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented make-believe, perfection and a world where no one misses a mark.
