After a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The show, known for its intricate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and critical critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Currently, nearly ten years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
A Master of Glitz
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his trademark look, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed 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 knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “New stars are embracing a show-stopping, more spectacular, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
The Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.
Drawing from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference classic entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 1990s era pop style of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Retro Look
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer 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, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ sexy because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the crystals and the shine but without the bare skin.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
She says showgirls are key to the imagery of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glamour,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift hints at in a recent documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, gym sessions and numerous performances across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my moment so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s easy and gorgeous and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Is there anyone better to turn to than these performers, who have always personified make-believe, flawlessness and a world where nobody misses a mark.
