Following a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its elaborate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The King of Glitz
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “Today's artists are striving for a theatrical, more theatrical, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across world tours in sparkles, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant feathered fans.
Drawing from Tradition
These artists and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century performances, including burlesque and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 90s Britney Spears era of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Style
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer 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, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic bring about a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, the historian says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
The Appeal of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This is a notion Taylor Swift alludes to in a new documentary series that shows the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and 149 performances across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own stage routines as “like extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could recover before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and stunning and dreamlike.”
Maybe this is where the fascination of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a realm where nobody falters.
