After a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Master of Sequins
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a silver and gold beaded 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 desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “New stars are pushing toward a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, grand statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across concert platforms in sparkles, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from historical entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and cargo pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But some critics are convinced with this showgirl revival. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Retro Style
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a translucent embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, 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 collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says a historian, a curator at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
The expert says showgirls are central to the identity of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still used as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Escape
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the allure. This is a notion the singer hints at in a latest docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, gym sessions and countless shows across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own stage routines as “like extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You are sweating the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s simple and gorgeous and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for escapism. Who better to look to than these performers, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a universe where no one misses a mark.
