Following a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its intricate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
A King of Sparkle
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, far exceeding its estimated price, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a publication. “Contemporary performers are striving for a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
The Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by music artists including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across world tours in glitter, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, her performers waved giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from Tradition
These artists and other chart toppers also draw on classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the 90s Britney Spears era of revealing tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But certain observers are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly today's icons.”
A Coveted Retro Look
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an significant price to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls evoke fond memories for a past glamour,” says a historian, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the legacy of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the bare skin.”
A Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Vegas
She says the showgirl image are key to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, the historian says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. This is a notion Swift references in a new docuseries that captures the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, gym sessions and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own showgirl performances as “comparable to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 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 head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could rest before I performed. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and beautiful and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. What better figure to look to than these performers, who have always represented fantasy, perfection and a universe where nobody misses a mark.
