After a 31-year run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The extravaganza, famous for its intricate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and disappointed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.
A Sultan of Sparkle
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its projected value, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Contemporary performers are striving for a show-stopping, more theatrical, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the centre of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across concert platforms in sparkles, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. A top stylist her creative director explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of crop tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”
The Coveted Retro Style
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an private amount to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“Showgirls inspire a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the legacy of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of the City
She says this figure are central to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the allure. This idea Taylor Swift hints at in a recent docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and countless shows across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her headdress weighed 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 moment so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is sweating the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s easy and beautiful and dreamlike.”
It could be this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Who better to emulate than these performers, who have always personified fantasy, perfection and a universe where no one falters.
