Following a 31-year run on the iconic Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.
A Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to pop royalty. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a publication. “New stars are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the epicenter of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by music artists including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and plumes, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, her performers fluttered giant feathered fans.
Pulling from the Past
These artists and other hitmakers also reference classic performances, including classic theater and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of crop tops and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
The Coveted Retro Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who documents the history of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Vegas
She says showgirls are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still used as an symbol of the city, being present at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
The Allure of Illusion
The former showgirl says the complete change of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion Taylor Swift references in a new documentary series that captures the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling practice sessions, gym sessions and countless concerts across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
The performer describes her own stage routines as “similar to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the green rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I performed. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and magical.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Who better to turn to than such icons, who have always personified dreams, flawlessness and a world where nobody makes a mistake.
