After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the production Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, famous for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and disappointed commentators who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
The King of Sparkle
Referred to as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his signature style, outfitting everyone from screen legends to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are pushing toward a show-stopping, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, grand statement.”
A Mainstream Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by singers including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across arena stages in sparkles, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant feathered fans.
Drawing from Tradition
These artists and other successful musicians also draw on classic entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are vastly different from the 90s teen pop of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an broad label covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Vintage Style
For younger and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“This style evoke a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says a historian, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas
The expert says the showgirl image are integral to the imagery of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Vegas glamour,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. This idea Swift references in a latest behind-the-scenes film that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, workouts and numerous performances across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
The performer recalls her own stage routines as “comparable to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could recover before I performed. You’re sweating the whole time but crafting this image that it’s simple and gorgeous and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. What better figure to look to than showgirls, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a universe where no one makes a mistake.
