🔗 Share this article

Following a three-decade stint on the iconic Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! gave one last choreographed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and critical reviewers who labeled it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

Now, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.

A Sultan of Glitz

Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his trademark look, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to pop royalty. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its projected value, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a newspaper. “New stars are embracing a theatrical, more spectacular, show-stopping, grand statement.”

The Musical Resurgence

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 music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and glittering headpiece were ideal for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.

She has company. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against camp sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.

Pulling from the Past

These artists and other chart toppers also draw on classic entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 1990s era teen pop of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and street-style dance moves that were popular earlier.

But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”

The Coveted Vintage Look

For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon gave a nod to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the star wore a translucent sequined dress created by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an private amount to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a collection of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a favorite among fashion collectors.

“Showgirls inspire nostalgia for a historical elegance,” says a historian, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who researches the history of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the exposure.”

More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Las Vegas

Chung says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still featured as an logo of the city, showing up at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring icon of Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.

An Appeal of Escape

Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the attraction. This idea the singer hints at in a new behind-the-scenes film that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous performances across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.

The performer explains her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headpiece tipped the scales at 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are working hard the whole time but crafting this image that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a longing for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to look to than showgirls, who have always personified dreams, perfection and a world where nobody makes a mistake.