Following a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and critical commentators who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.
The King of Sparkle
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from screen legends to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a silver and gold beaded bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “Today's artists are pushing toward a glamorous, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
The Musical Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director told Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, the backup dancers fluttered giant feathered fans.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also draw on classic entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that were popular earlier.
But certain observers are convinced with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly today's icons.”
The Coveted Vintage Style
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a see-through sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the University of Nevada, who studies the story of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the shine but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of the City
She says showgirls are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. While Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still featured as an emblem of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
The Allure of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. This idea Taylor Swift hints at in a latest docuseries that shows the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and numerous performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 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 start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s easy and gorgeous and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always represented make-believe, perfection and a world where no one falters.
