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After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and critical critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Today, nearly ten years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.

A Master of Sequins

Referred to as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his trademark look, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “see-through” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“In my view it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a media outlet. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, memorable statement.”

The Mainstream Revival

It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The crystal-covered bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been adopted by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across concert platforms in sparkles, strategic openings and feathers, highlighted against overstated sets. A top stylist her creative director told a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers waved giant plumed accessories.

Pulling from the Past

Lipa, Carpenter and other successful musicians also take inspiration from 19th-century entertainment forms, including classic theater and chorus line references. The final look are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that were popular earlier.

But some critics are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “used as an umbrella term encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly modern pop stars.”

The Highly Sought-After Vintage Style

For millennial and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress gave a nod to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a see-through beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an undisclosed sum 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 retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.

“The showgirl aesthetic evoke a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says an archivist, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who studies the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ allure because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”

A Than Just Style: An Icon of Las Vegas

The expert says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Las Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas no longer has any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, being present at conventions and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring figure of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.

The Allure of Transformation

Nancy Hardy says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift alludes to in a recent documentary series that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, gym sessions and 149 performances across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.

Hardy explains her own nights in the spotlight as “like extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I went on stage. You’re perspiring the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s easy and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

Maybe this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Who better to look to than such icons, who have always embodied fantasy, flawlessness and a universe where no one makes a mistake.