After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to declining audience numbers and critical commentators 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 back.
A Sultan of Glitz
Dubbed the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his signature style, outfitting everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are striving for a theatrical, more theatrical, breathtaking, memorable statement.”
The Mainstream Comeback
It’s a look that glided all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by music artists including Dua Lipa as they danced across world tours in glitter, cut-outs and plumes, spotlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Pulling from History
These artists and other successful musicians also reference classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 1990s era Britney Spears era of revealing tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are enthusiastic with this showgirl renaissance. A former performer, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an broad label encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Retro Look
For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute 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 reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, Miley Cyrus 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 collection of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among collectors.
“This style inspire nostalgia for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the University of Nevada, who documents the story of showgirls. “Now it is considered a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Style: An Icon of Las Vegas
Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was flanked by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still used as an emblem of the city, showing up at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.
The Appeal of Illusion
The former showgirl says the complete change of a stage character is part of the appeal. This idea the singer alludes to in a latest behind-the-scenes film that shows the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and countless performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are working hard the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s simple and stunning and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented dreams, perfection and a realm where nobody misses a mark.
