🔗 Share this article

Following a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and disappointed critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.

The Master of Glitz

Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his signature style, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.

“In my view it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “New stars are pushing toward a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”

The Mainstream Revival

It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by singers including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across arena stages in glitter, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, her performers waved giant feathered fans.

Pulling from the Past

Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including classic theater and dance line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era teen pop of crop tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.

But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “treated as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”

The Coveted Classic Look

For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through embellished dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.

“Showgirls inspire a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says a historian, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”

A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas

The expert says this figure are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still featured as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glamour,” she says.

An Appeal of Illusion

Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea Taylor Swift alludes to in a new docuseries that shows the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, gym sessions and countless shows across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.

The performer describes her own showgirl performances as “similar to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could rest before I performed. You’re working hard the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s simple and gorgeous and magical.”

It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always personified make-believe, flawlessness and a world where no one falters.