After a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical critics who labeled it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Currently, nearly ten years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
The Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, grand statement.”
The Musical Revival
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of mainstream fashion 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 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering 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 Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across arena stages in sparkles, cut-outs and plumes, spotlighted against overstated sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
These artists and other chart toppers also take inspiration from classic performances, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 90s pop style of crop tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are on board with this showgirl revival. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “used as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Look
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a translucent embellished dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount to buy the Mackie beaded 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 hit among collectors.
“Showgirls bring about nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas
The expert says this figure are integral to the iconography of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Allure of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a stage character is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift hints at in a new docuseries that documents the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling practice sessions, workouts and numerous concerts across multiple nations, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy explains her own stage routines as “comparable to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the green rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could recover before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s easy and gorgeous and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a realm where no one misses a mark.
