After a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the production Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The production, known for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Now, nearly ten years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
A Master of Sequins
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his trademark look, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Recently, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a newspaper. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, memorable statement.”
The Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across world tours in sequins, cut-outs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist 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
These artists and other chart toppers also draw on classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The outcome are worlds away from the late-century teen pop of crop tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But certain observers are on board with this showgirl renaissance. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Vintage Style
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a translucent beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a series of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
The expert says showgirls are integral to the imagery of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still used as an symbol of the city, appearing at conventions and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the magical transformation of a stage character is part of the allure. This is a notion the singer references in a new docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, workouts and 149 concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own stage routines as “like completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my moment so I could rest before I performed. You’re perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and beautiful and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. What better figure to turn to than these performers, who have always embodied fantasy, perfection and a world where nobody makes a mistake.
