How 'Showgirl' Emerged as the Dazzling Style of This Year
After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and disappointed critics who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Currently, roughly eight years later, the showgirl persona, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A King of Glitz
Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they knew from childhood”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “New stars are striving for a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”
A Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to Taylor Swift. Earlier this year, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.
The singer isn't alone. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in sequins, strategic openings and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco told a style publication he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.
Drawing from Tradition
Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also draw on 19th-century performances, including classic theater and ensemble references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.
But certain observers are on board with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
The Coveted Vintage Look
For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a famous actress honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, head of special collections at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the history of showgirls. “Today it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ sexy because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”
More Than Simply Fashion: An Symbol of the City
Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still employed as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Vegas glamour,” the expert says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the appeal. It’s something Taylor Swift alludes to in a new documentary series that documents the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, training and numerous performances across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.
Hardy describes her own stage routines as “similar to running a marathon in heels every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could recover before I made my entrance. You are perspiring the whole time but crafting this image that it’s effortless and stunning and magical.”
Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than these performers, who have always represented dreams, idealism and a realm where nobody falters.
