After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, known for its intricate costumes crafted by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to dwindling audience numbers and disappointed commentators who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
The Sultan of Glitz
Known as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his signature style, dressing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. Recently, a “see-through” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a silver and gold tasseled 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 younger performer who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a publication. “Today's artists are pushing toward a theatrical, more theatrical, breathtaking, grand statement.”
The Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by singers including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across arena stages in glitter, revealing designs and plumes, spotlighted against camp sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era teen pop of short shirts and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. 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 seemingly today's icons.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent embellished dress designed 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 previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls inspire fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, an expert at the an academic institution, who documents the story of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas
She says the showgirl image are integral to the iconography of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Allure of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. This is a notion the singer hints at in a latest docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, training and numerous performances across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own stage routines as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in high heels every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could recover before I performed. One is perspiring the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s effortless and beautiful and ethereal.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. What better figure to emulate than such icons, who have always embodied make-believe, flawlessness and a world where nobody misses a mark.
