After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! gave one last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, known for its intricate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who labeled it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
The Sultan of Sequins
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are pushing toward a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, grand statement.”
The Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by singers including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across concert platforms in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The outcome are worlds away from the late-century teen pop of revealing tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are on board 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 term is being “treated as an catch-all phrase encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently Taylor Swift.”
A Highly Sought-After Classic Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer 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 trio of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says a historian, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who studies the history of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the glitter but without the nudity.”
More Than Just Style: An Icon of the City
She says this figure are central to the iconography of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded 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, being present at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining figure of Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea the singer references in a recent documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own stage routines as “similar to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to turn to than these performers, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a universe where no one makes a mistake.
