🔗 Share this article

After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is back.

The Sultan of Sparkle

Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. Recently, a “see-through” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“In my view it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a glamorous, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”

The Mainstream Resurgence

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.

The singer isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by singers including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across concert platforms in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant feathered fans.

Pulling from the Past

These artists and other hitmakers also draw on historical entertainment forms, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The outcome are vastly different from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and cargo pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.

But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”

A Coveted Vintage Style

For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn previously 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 popular item among collectors.

“The showgirl aesthetic inspire nostalgia for a historical elegance,” says a historian, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who documents the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”

More Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of the City

She says this figure are integral to the identity of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still used as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.

The Appeal of Escape

The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This is a notion Swift references in a latest documentary series that documents the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling preparations, gym sessions and 149 shows across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She recalls her own showgirl performances as “like 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 platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my entrance so I could rest before I made my entrance. You are sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s effortless and beautiful and magical.”

Perhaps this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always represented dreams, perfection and a universe where no one makes a mistake.