After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.
The King of Glitz
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his trademark look, outfitting everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “New stars are striving for a show-stopping, more theatrical, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist a fashion expert told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also reference classic performances, including classic theater and ensemble references. The outcome are vastly different from the late-century pop style of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed 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 seemingly Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Classic Style
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent embellished dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an private amount to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“Showgirls evoke fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, an expert at the University of Nevada, who researches the history of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says showgirls are integral to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still used as an logo of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the appeal. It’s something Taylor Swift references in a recent documentary series that shows the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and 149 concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She recalls her own nights in the spotlight as “like extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the stage from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could catch my breath before I performed. You’re working hard the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s easy and beautiful and ethereal.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Is there anyone better to look to than such icons, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a universe where no one makes a mistake.
