After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the production Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and critical commentators who labeled it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
The Sultan of Sequins
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from screen legends to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “Today's artists are embracing a theatrical, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Revival
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across world tours in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert told Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 50s, the backup dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
These artists and other hitmakers also reference historical entertainment forms, including classic theater and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century pop style of crop tops and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Look
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through embellished dress made 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 tasseled mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls inspire a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
She says this figure are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the appeal. This is a notion Swift hints at in a new documentary series that captures the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the basement. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s easy and stunning and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Is there anyone better to turn to than these performers, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a world where nobody misses a mark.
