After a long-running run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and disappointed reviewers who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
A King of Sparkle
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a media outlet. “Today's artists are striving for a glamorous, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Musical Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across concert platforms in sequins, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from History
Modern stars and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
The Coveted Retro Style
For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the an academic institution, who researches the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the shine but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, showing up at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.
The Appeal of Escape
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the attraction. This idea Taylor Swift hints at in a new documentary series that documents the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, gym sessions and countless performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are sweating the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s easy and stunning and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for escapism. Is there anyone better to look to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a realm where nobody makes a mistake.
