Following a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and critical critics who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
A King of Glitz
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his trademark look, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a publication. “Contemporary performers are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
The Musical Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by music artists including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across arena stages in sparkles, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, illuminated against overstated sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers waved giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from the Past
Modern stars and other chart toppers also take inspiration from classic performances, including classic theater and chorus line references. The final look are vastly different from the 1990s era pop style of short shirts and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Vintage Style
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a semi-sheer embellished dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“This style bring about fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the an academic institution, who researches the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Icon of the City
She says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric 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 lasting figure of Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Escape
The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. It’s something Taylor Swift alludes to in a recent docuseries that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, training and countless concerts across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
She recalls her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my cue so I could recover before I performed. One is sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s effortless and stunning and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. What better figure to look to than showgirls, who have always embodied fantasy, perfection and a world where no one misses a mark.
