After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, nearly ten years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.
The Master of Sequins
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
A Musical 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 vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been adopted by singers including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across world tours in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant feathered fans.
Drawing from the Past
These artists and other hitmakers also take inspiration from classic performances, including burlesque and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the 1990s era teen pop of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Look
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls bring about fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who documents the story of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the shine but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas
She says the showgirl image are central to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, showing up at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This idea the singer references in a latest behind-the-scenes film that captures the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling preparations, training and numerous shows across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “like completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could recover before I performed. One is sweating the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for escapism. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always personified fantasy, idealism and a world where nobody misses a mark.
