How 'Showgirl Glamour' Transformed into the Glittering Look of 2025

After a 31-year tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the showgirls from the production Jubilee! gave one last synchronised kick in 2016. The show, famous for its intricate costumes designed by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and disappointed commentators who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

Today, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.

A King of Glitz

Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glitz his signature style, outfitting everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. In a recent auction, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 concert sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more attractive for the younger performer who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are pushing toward a theatrical, more theatrical, show-stopping, grand statement.”

A Mainstream Comeback

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift is part of a trend. This year, showgirl references have been embraced by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across world tours in sparkles, cut-outs and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against theatrical sets. A top stylist her creative director told Vogue he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the mid-century, her performers fluttered giant plumed accessories.

Drawing from Tradition

These artists and other successful musicians also draw on 19th-century performances, including classic theater and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 1990s era teen pop of crop tops and cargo pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.

But some critics are convinced with this showgirl revival. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an broad label including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even today's icons.”

A Coveted Vintage Style

For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, Zendaya paid tribute to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent sequined dress created by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, Carpenter wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.

“Showgirls inspire nostalgia for a historical elegance,” says an archivist, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who documents the history of showgirls. “Currently it is seen as a sort of ‘toned-down’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the nudity.”

A Than Just Style: An Icon of the City

Chung says this figure are integral to the imagery of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an emblem of the city, showing up at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting figure of Las Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.

An Appeal of Transformation

Hardy says the magical transformation of a stage character is part of the attraction. This is a notion Swift alludes to in a latest documentary series that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, workouts and 149 concerts across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She explains her own stage routines as “similar to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to start early for my cue so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the complexity of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. Is there anyone better to look to than these performers, who have always embodied make-believe, flawlessness and a universe where no one misses a mark.