After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to declining audience numbers and disappointed critics who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Now, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A King of Sparkle
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from screen legends to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic beaded bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a publication. “New stars are pushing toward a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they danced across concert platforms in sequins, strategic openings and feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Her fashion curator a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, her performers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.
Pulling from the Past
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including classic theater and dance line references. The outcome are vastly different from the 90s pop style of short shirts and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.
But some critics are on board with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”
The Highly Sought-After Classic Style
For younger and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through embellished dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.
“Showgirls inspire nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who researches the history of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the nudity.”
More Than Just Style: An Symbol of the City
The expert says the showgirl image are integral to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an logo of the city, being present at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
The Allure of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the attraction. It’s something Swift references in a recent documentary series that documents the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling practice sessions, gym sessions and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each running for 3.5 hours.
Hardy recalls her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my cue so I could rest before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s simple and gorgeous and magical.”
It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always embodied make-believe, perfection and a realm where nobody falters.
