🔗 Share this article

After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! executed their last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.

A King of Sparkle

Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top stage sparkle his signature style, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to pop royalty. In a recent auction, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its projected value, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more spectacular, breathtaking, memorable statement.”

The Musical Revival

It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

She is part of a trend. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in glitter, strategic openings and plumes, highlighted 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 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.

Drawing from the Past

Modern stars and other successful musicians also reference classic performances, including vaudeville and ensemble references. The results are worlds away from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and cargo pants, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.

But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s 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 modern pop stars.”

A Highly Sought-After Retro Style

For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent embellished dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an private amount to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a series of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among collectors.

“This style bring about a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says a historian, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the sparkles and the shine but without the bare skin.”

More Than Just Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas

The expert says this figure are key to the imagery of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Chung says they are still featured as an emblem of the city, appearing at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.

The Appeal of Transformation

Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the appeal. This idea the singer hints at in a latest docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and countless concerts across multiple nations, each lasting 3.5 hours.

Hardy explains her own stage routines as “comparable to completing an endurance race in high heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my moment so I could catch my breath before I performed. You’re perspiring the whole time but maintaining this illusion that it’s easy and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Is there anyone better to turn to than showgirls, who have always embodied make-believe, idealism and a realm where nobody makes a mistake.