After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
A Master of Sparkle
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a media outlet. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
The Musical Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. 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 glittering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by music artists including Dua Lipa as they danced across arena stages in glitter, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, highlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s teen pop of short shirts and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an broad label covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Classic Style
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, Zendaya honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“Showgirls inspire fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas
Chung says this figure are central to the identity of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still used as an logo of the city, appearing at gatherings and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas glamour,” she says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. It’s something Taylor Swift references in a latest documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, gym sessions and 149 performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She describes her own nights in the spotlight as “like extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my cue so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but crafting this image that it’s simple and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Who better to turn to than showgirls, who have always embodied make-believe, idealism and a world where no one falters.
