After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical critics who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.
The Sultan of Sequins
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a show-stopping, more theatrical, breathtaking, grand statement.”
A Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that glided all the way to the epicenter of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a chart-topping superstar. 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, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and feathers, illuminated against overstated sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 1950s, the backup dancers waved giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from History
Modern stars and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the late-century pop style of crop tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But certain observers are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an catch-all phrase encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”
The Coveted Vintage Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the star wore a see-through beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, another pop star paid an private amount to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the University of Nevada, who documents the history of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
She says this figure are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, being present at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the magical transformation of a stage character is part of the attraction. It’s something Swift references in a new docuseries that captures the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, workouts and countless performances across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to extreme physical exertion in high heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the performance area from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my moment so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s easy and beautiful and ethereal.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. Is there anyone better to emulate than such icons, who have always embodied dreams, idealism and a world where no one misses a mark.
