After a three-decade tenure on the iconic Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.
A Sultan of Sequins
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his trademark look, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, show-stopping, grand statement.”
The Mainstream Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and sparkly headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across arena stages in glitter, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, highlighted against overstated sets. A top stylist her creative director explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, her performers waved giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from History
These artists and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The results are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of crop tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an broad label covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer embellished dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an significant price 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 collection of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“This style evoke nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who documents the story of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Vegas
The expert says this figure are key to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Las Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Illusion
Hardy says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the attraction. This idea Swift alludes to in a recent behind-the-scenes film that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, workouts and countless concerts across multiple nations, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own nights in the spotlight as “like running a marathon in heels every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You are sweating the whole time but crafting this image that it’s simple and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Who better to turn to than such icons, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a world where nobody makes a mistake.
