After a long-running run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the production Jubilee! gave one last synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl style, is experiencing a revival.
A Sultan of Sparkle
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his trademark look, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its projected value, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“In my view it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they were accustomed to”, he told a media outlet. “Today's artists are pushing toward a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, memorable statement.”
A Pop Culture Resurgence
It’s a look that glided all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by a chart-topping superstar. In the past few months, 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, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sequins, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant feathered fans.
Drawing from History
These artists and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The final look are poles apart from the 1990s era teen pop of revealing tops and cargo pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “used as an broad label including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”
The Coveted Vintage Look
For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through sequined dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, another pop star paid an private amount to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously 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 favorite among fashion collectors.
“This style inspire a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the sparkle but without the exposure.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of Las Vegas
The expert says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still used as an symbol of the city, showing up at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Illusion
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the allure. It’s something Taylor Swift references in a recent docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, gym sessions and countless concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could rest before I went on stage. You’re working hard the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s simple and beautiful and ethereal.”
Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the complexity of 2025 there is a longing for escapism. What better figure to look to than these performers, who have always represented fantasy, perfection and a universe where nobody misses a mark.
