After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the revue Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, nearly ten years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
The Master of Sparkle
Referred to as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “New stars are striving for a glamorous, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
A Musical Revival
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across arena stages in sparkles, strategic openings and feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, her performers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also reference historical entertainment forms, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 1990s era pop style of crop tops and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are on board with this showgirl revival. An ex-showgirl, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an broad label covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Classic Style
For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum 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 collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
“Showgirls evoke nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who researches the history of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the sophistication, the crystals and the glitter but without the exposure.”
A Than Just Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are key to the imagery of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an logo of the city, showing up at gatherings and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift hints at in a new documentary series that captures the backstage action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and countless performances across multiple nations, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own showgirl performances as “like completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my cue so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is sweating the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s easy and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, idealism and a universe where nobody makes a mistake.
