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After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the revue Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes created by the American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and unimpressed critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.
Now, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is back.
Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his signature style, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and sparkly headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
Swift isn’t alone. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus and Dua Lipa as they whizzed across arena stages in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, spotlighted against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco told Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant feathered fans.
Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also draw on 19th-century performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of crop tops and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them. Mackie references Beyoncé as influencing her younger counterparts. “I think it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they grew up with”, he told the Guardian. “New stars are pushing toward a glamorous, more theatrical, show-stopping, entrance-making statement.”
But not everyone is on board with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently Taylor Swift.” She points to Swift’s combination of perfect makeup, glamorous costumes, dramatic lighting and special stage effects as the new indicators of a showgirl. “Today a showgirl is really someone who walks an illusion because everything is ‘perfection’ in a theatrical sense,” she says. There used to be a clear hierarchy between dancers, performers and showgirls. Showgirls, who she says were “more statuesque”, performed topless, while dancers were covered. “They barely moved because they didn’t want a lot of jiggling.”
For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, Zendaya paid tribute to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967 on the Carol Burnett show. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.
The aesthetic reflects a wider ‘naked dressing’ trend in fashion, with everyone from Zoë Kravitz to Margot Robbie and Lily Allen embracing sheer, lacy and barely-there dresses. In May, Cannes banned such dresses for “decency reasons”. Today’s showgirls, while not topless, still allude to nudity with flesh coloured bra panels and carefully placed rhinestones.
“Showgirls 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. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been modified. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”
Chung says showgirls are central to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was flanked by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas no longer has any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still used as an emblem of the city, appearing at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
It was this pseudo glamour that Gia Coppola mused on earlier this year with the release of The Last Showgirl, starring Pamela Anderson. The film takes its inspiration from the closure of Jubilee! and follows Shelly, an ageing showgirl, as she comes to terms with Le Razzle Dazzle, the show she has performed in for over 30 years, winding down.
Reflecting on her former status, the character muses: “Las Vegas used to treat us like movie stars. The iconic American showgirl. The Las Vegas showgirl. We were ambassadors for style and grace. You know, it was just... the costumes. I mean, it makes you feel like you’re stepping out of the pages of Vogue magazine.”
Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift alludes to in a recent docuseries that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, gym sessions and 149 performances across 21 countries, each lasting 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own showgirl performances as “like running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You’re perspiring the whole time but creating this illusion that it’s easy and beautiful and ethereal.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really lies. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Who better to turn to than showgirls, who have always embodied fantasy, perfection and a world where no one misses a mark.
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