Following a three-decade stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and unimpressed critics who labeled it a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
The Master of Sequins
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his signature style, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to pop royalty. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
The Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon 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 ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across world tours in sequins, cut-outs and plumes, illuminated against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The results are worlds away from the 1990s era teen pop of revealing tops and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Style
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer sequined dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke fond memories for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who researches the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was flanked by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, the historian says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Las Vegas glamour,” she says.
An Appeal of Escape
Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the attraction. It’s something Taylor Swift alludes to in a new docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “like running a marathon in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my moment so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the true allure of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Who better to turn to than such icons, who have always personified make-believe, flawlessness and a universe where nobody makes a mistake.
