Following a long-running run on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and critical reviewers who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
The Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to pop royalty. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its projected value, while a silver and gold beaded bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to 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 epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, cut-outs and feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant ostrich feather fans.
Drawing from History
Modern stars and other successful musicians also draw on historical entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “used as an broad label including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Vintage Style
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of vintage 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 Su Kim Chung, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the story of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says the showgirl image are central to the imagery of Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion the singer references in a recent behind-the-scenes film that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling preparations, workouts and countless concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy explains her own stage routines as “similar to running a marathon in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and beautiful and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Who better to turn to than showgirls, who have always embodied dreams, idealism and a world where nobody falters.
