Following a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and disappointed critics who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
A King of Glitz
Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his signature style, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to pop royalty. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a silver and gold tasseled 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 emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are striving for a show-stopping, more theatrical, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
A Musical Comeback
It’s a look that sashayed 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 rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by singers including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sequins, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, highlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on historical entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The final look are poles apart from the late-century teen pop of crop tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are on board with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an broad label including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly today's icons.”
The Highly Sought-After Vintage Look
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount 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 trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the story of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
More Than Just Fashion: An Symbol of Las Vegas
She says showgirls are integral to the imagery of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still featured as an symbol of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.
The Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion the singer hints at in a new documentary series that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and 149 shows across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.
She describes her own stage routines as “similar to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my moment so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for escapism. Who better to turn to than these performers, who have always personified make-believe, idealism and a realm where no one misses a mark.
