After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! gave one last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, known for its ornate costumes created by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.
A Master of Sequins
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his trademark look, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “Today's artists are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
The Musical Revival
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by singers including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across world tours in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.
Pulling from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also reference classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The final look are worlds away from the 90s Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.
But some critics are on board with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
A Coveted Classic Style
For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a semi-sheer 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 private amount to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a historical elegance,” says a historian, an expert at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of the City
The expert says this figure are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an symbol of the city, appearing at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea Swift alludes to in a new documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, gym sessions and countless shows across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own showgirl performances as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 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 leave early for my cue so I could recover before I made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s easy and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Who better to emulate than these performers, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a world where no one makes a mistake.
