After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed critics who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.
The Sultan of Sequins
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his signature style, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a newspaper. “Contemporary performers are embracing a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, grand statement.”
The Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across arena stages in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, illuminated against camp sets. A top stylist a fashion expert explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also draw on historical entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are worlds away from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But certain observers are convinced with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Look
For younger and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says showgirls are key to the identity of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded 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, appearing at gatherings and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. It’s something Taylor Swift hints at in a recent behind-the-scenes film that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, workouts and 149 concerts across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in stilettos 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 green rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my entrance so I could rest before I performed. One is perspiring the whole time but creating this image that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Is there anyone better to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented make-believe, perfection and a universe where no one falters.
