Following a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who labeled it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.
The Master of Glitz
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his signature style, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a newspaper. “New stars are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, grand statement.”
The Musical Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, the backup dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also draw on 19th-century performances, including burlesque and ensemble references. The outcome are vastly different from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But certain observers are on board with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Retro Style
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show 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 hit among vintage enthusiasts.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says showgirls are central to the imagery of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Illusion
The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a stage character is part of the appeal. This is a notion Taylor Swift alludes to in a latest behind-the-scenes film that captures the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, workouts and countless concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “similar to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could rest before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s easy and gorgeous and magical.”
Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a realm where nobody misses a mark.
