After a long-running run on the iconic Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed critics who labeled it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
The Master of Sequins
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his signature style, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a glamorous, more spectacular, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
The Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks 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 rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer isn't alone. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across arena stages in sparkles, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, the backup dancers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from classic performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s pop style of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Classic Look
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a series of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“Showgirls inspire fond memories for a historical elegance,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who documents the story of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still used as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
An Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This idea Taylor Swift hints at in a new docuseries that documents the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, workouts and numerous performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
The performer recalls her own showgirl performances as “comparable to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. One is sweating the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. What better figure to emulate than these performers, who have always represented dreams, perfection and a realm where no one misses a mark.
