After a three-decade stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and disappointed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
The King of Sparkle
Referred to as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his trademark look, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, far exceeding its estimated price, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he explained to a newspaper. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
The Musical Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original 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 called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across world tours in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including classic theater and dance line references. The final look are worlds away from the 90s Britney Spears era of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Classic Look
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the star wore a see-through embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“Showgirls evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
Chung says showgirls are integral to the iconography of Vegas. She points to one-time leader 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 symbol of the city, being present at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas spectacle,” she says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the attraction. It’s something Swift hints at in a recent behind-the-scenes film that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, training and numerous concerts across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to start early for my entrance so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is sweating the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s simple and stunning and magical.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. What better figure to emulate than such icons, who have always embodied make-believe, perfection and a world where nobody falters.
