After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and critical reviewers who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A King of Sparkle
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a newspaper. “Contemporary performers are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, attention-grabbing, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. 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 shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer isn't alone. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, cut-outs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against overstated sets. Her fashion curator her creative director mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The results are worlds away from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are on board with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly today's icons.”
The Coveted Classic Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress 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. Months after, a singer 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 trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“This style bring about fond memories for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who researches the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Vegas
The expert says this figure are key to the imagery of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, the historian says they are still employed as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Las Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
The Allure of Illusion
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the allure. This is a notion Taylor Swift alludes to in a latest documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, gym sessions and numerous performances across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
She recalls her own stage routines as “like completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the stage 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 made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s simple and gorgeous and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. What better figure to emulate than such icons, who have always embodied make-believe, idealism and a realm where nobody misses a mark.
