After a long-running run on the iconic Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! gave one last synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its intricate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
The Master of Sparkle
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, far exceeding its projected value, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a newspaper. “New stars are pushing toward a glamorous, more theatrical, breathtaking, grand statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Recently, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in sparkles, strategic openings and plumes, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from Tradition
These artists and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are vastly different from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
The Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer sequined dress made 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 tasseled mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls bring about a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, a curator at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of the City
She says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
An Allure of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea Taylor Swift hints at in a recent docuseries that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling preparations, workouts and countless shows across dozens of cities, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to support 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 cue so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and stunning and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a universe where no one falters.
