After a 31-year tenure on the iconic Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and critical commentators who labeled it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.
A Master of Sequins
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his signature style, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a publication. “Contemporary performers are striving for a glamorous, more spectacular, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across concert platforms in glitter, cut-outs and feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. A top stylist her creative director told Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, her performers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from the Past
These artists and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The final look are poles apart from the 1990s era teen pop of crop tops and cargo pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But certain observers are on board with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”
The Highly Sought-After Retro Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, another pop star paid an significant price to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about nostalgia for a historical elegance,” says a historian, a curator at the an academic institution, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Symbol of Las Vegas
Chung says showgirls 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. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, being present at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Illusion
Hardy says the magical transformation of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion Taylor Swift references in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, workouts and numerous concerts across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy explains her own stage routines as “comparable to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You are sweating the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s simple and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a universe where no one falters.
