Following a long-running run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its intricate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed critics who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Currently, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A Master of Sparkle
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his trademark look, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a newspaper. “New stars are striving for a show-stopping, more spectacular, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
A Mainstream Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. Recently, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, the backup dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Drawing from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century performances, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The final look are vastly different from the 90s pop style of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Retro Style
For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star 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 favorite among fashion collectors.
“This style inspire fond memories for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the University of Nevada, who studies the history of showgirls. “Currently it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the shine but without the bare skin.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of the City
She says showgirls are central to the iconography of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, being present at gatherings and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the allure. It’s something Taylor Swift hints at in a new documentary series that shows the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, gym sessions and 149 concerts across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own showgirl performances as “like completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s easy and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a world where no one misses a mark.
