After a 31-year run on the iconic Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its intricate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who labeled it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Master of Glitz
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a newspaper. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, grand statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather 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 references have been adopted by singers including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across arena stages in glitter, strategic openings and feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco explained to a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from Tradition
Modern stars and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that were popular earlier.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an catch-all phrase encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Retro Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer embellished dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, another pop star paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a historical elegance,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the history of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says this figure are central to the identity of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, appearing at gatherings and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This is a notion Swift references in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and 149 performances across multiple nations, each lasting 3.5 hours.
The performer recalls her own nights in the spotlight as “like running a marathon in heels every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could rest before I performed. You’re working hard the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s easy and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always personified fantasy, idealism and a universe where no one falters.
