After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The production, famous for its elaborate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and critical commentators who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, nearly ten years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
The Master of Glitz
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its projected value, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a show-stopping, more spectacular, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
The Musical Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across world tours in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from the Past
These artists and other successful musicians also draw on 19th-century performances, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are vastly different from the late-century teen pop of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word term is being “treated as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”
A Coveted Classic Look
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously 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 favorite among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls evoke nostalgia for a historical elegance,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the shine but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
The Allure of Escape
The former showgirl says the complete change of a stage character is part of the appeal. This idea the singer hints at in a recent docuseries that captures the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, gym sessions and 149 performances across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own nights in the spotlight as “like completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the green rooms 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. You are perspiring the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Maybe this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. What better figure to emulate than showgirls, who have always embodied make-believe, perfection and a universe where nobody misses a mark.
