After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the showgirls from the spectacle Jubilee! gave one last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, famous for its ornate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical reviewers who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Currently, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.
The Master of Sequins
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with lamé 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 media outlet. “Contemporary performers are embracing a glamorous, more spectacular, breathtaking, grand statement.”
The Mainstream Revival
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were ideal for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by singers including Dua Lipa as they zoomed across arena stages in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, her performers waved giant feathered fans.
Pulling from the Past
Modern stars and other successful musicians also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The outcome are vastly different from the 90s Britney Spears era of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But certain observers are convinced with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer embellished dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer 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, the singer wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says a historian, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Currently it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
The expert says this figure are key to the imagery of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, appearing at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Transformation
The former showgirl says the complete change of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. It’s something Taylor Swift hints at in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous shows across 21 countries, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own stage routines as “like extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. You’re perspiring the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s effortless and beautiful and dreamlike.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always embodied make-believe, flawlessness and a world where nobody misses a mark.
