After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and critical reviewers who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
The Sultan of Sequins
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his trademark look, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Contemporary performers are striving for a glamorous, more dramatic, breathtaking, grand statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Recently, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift isn't alone. This year, showgirl references have been adopted by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across world tours in glitter, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.
Drawing from the Past
These artists and other chart toppers also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.
But some critics are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Vintage Look
For millennial 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 star wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, 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, Carpenter wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“Showgirls evoke fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who documents the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of the City
The expert says this figure are central to the imagery of Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
An Appeal of Illusion
Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. This is a notion Swift hints at in a recent behind-the-scenes film that captures the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous performances across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “comparable to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could rest before I performed. You’re perspiring the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s simple and beautiful and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the chaos of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always embodied fantasy, perfection and a realm where no one falters.
