Following a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! gave one last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its intricate costumes crafted by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and disappointed critics who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is back.
A King of Glitz
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his signature style, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a shimmering beaded bodysuit with lamé 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 desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more theatrical, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
A Mainstream 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. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and sparkly headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across concert platforms in glitter, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco explained to Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from History
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also take inspiration from historical entertainment forms, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are convinced with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even Taylor Swift.”
A Coveted Vintage Look
For younger and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress wore a semi-sheer beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn earlier in the year 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.
“This style evoke nostalgia for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who documents the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of the City
The expert says showgirls are key to the identity of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-centric productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, appearing at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Illusion
Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the attraction. It’s something the singer references in a new documentary series that captures the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, workouts and 149 performances across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy explains her own showgirl performances as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headdress tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the stairs to the platform 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 recover before I went on stage. One is perspiring the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s easy and gorgeous and magical.”
It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than these performers, who have always personified fantasy, flawlessness and a world where no one misses a mark.
