After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its intricate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
A King of Sequins
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his signature style, outfitting everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its projected value, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he told a newspaper. “New stars are striving for a glamorous, more spectacular, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, cut-outs and plumes, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator her creative director mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, the backup dancers waved giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from the Past
These artists and other successful musicians also draw on classic entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the late-century pop style of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an broad label covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”
A Highly Sought-After Classic Style
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the star wore a semi-sheer embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire nostalgia for a past glamour,” says a historian, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Just Style: An Icon of Vegas
She says showgirls are central to the imagery of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Illusion
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the allure. This idea the singer hints at in a recent behind-the-scenes film that documents the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, training and 149 performances across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own nights in the spotlight as “like running a marathon in stilettos every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my cue so I could rest before I performed. You are perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s simple and beautiful and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. What better figure to look to than these performers, who have always personified fantasy, idealism and a world where no one makes a mistake.
