🔗 Share this article

Following a long-running run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its intricate costumes created by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Currently, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.

The Sultan of Glitz

Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his trademark look, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a silver and gold tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a media outlet. “New stars are pushing toward a theatrical, more dramatic, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”

The Musical Comeback

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, plumed armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift has company. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across arena stages in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, illuminated against overstated sets. A top stylist her creative director told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.

Drawing from the Past

These artists and other chart toppers also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including burlesque and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of revealing tops and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that preceded this trend.

But some critics are on board with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”

A Highly Sought-After Classic Look

For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among vintage enthusiasts.

“The showgirl aesthetic bring about a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the history of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”

More Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of the City

She says this figure are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, showing up at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” she says.

An Appeal of Escape

The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift alludes to in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, training and countless shows across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.

She describes her own stage routines as “like completing an endurance race in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my moment so I could recover before I made my entrance. You’re sweating the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and ethereal.”

Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to emulate than such icons, who have always represented make-believe, flawlessness and a world where nobody makes a mistake.