After a long-running run on the iconic Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The extravaganza, known for its ornate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
The Master of Glitz
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its projected value, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
The Pop Culture Revival
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. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by music artists including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sequins, revealing designs and plumes, highlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 1950s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
Modern stars and other hitmakers also take inspiration from historical entertainment forms, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The outcome are vastly different from the late-century pop style of revealing tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are on board with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
A Coveted Classic Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, Zendaya paid tribute to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
A Than Just Style: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, showing up at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the appeal. It’s something Taylor Swift hints at in a recent docuseries that documents the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, training and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She recalls her own showgirl performances as “similar to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps 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’re working hard the whole time but creating this image that it’s easy and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to emulate than such icons, who have always represented dreams, perfection and a realm where no one makes a mistake.
