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Following a long-running run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the revue Jubilee! took a final perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, known for its elaborate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

Currently, nearly ten years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.

A Master of Sequins

Known as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his trademark look, dressing everyone from screen legends to pop royalty. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is seeking something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a newspaper. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, grand statement.”

The Musical Resurgence

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. In the past few months, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The crystal-covered bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.

She has company. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they whizzed across world tours in sequins, cut-outs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against camp sets. Lipa’s stylist a fashion expert mentioned in an interview with a style publication he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – referencing pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.

Pulling from History

Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s Britney Spears era of revealing tops and cargo pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.

But some critics are on board with this showgirl revival. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s 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 apparently today's icons.”

The Coveted Classic Look

For gen Z and modern stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actor wore a see-through sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, a singer 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, the singer wore a trio of classic Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.

“Showgirls bring about a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says a historian, a curator at the University of Nevada, who researches the story of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ sexy because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the bare skin.”

More Than Just Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas

The expert says the showgirl image are central to the iconography of Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an logo of the city, being present at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a remaining icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.

An Appeal of Transformation

The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift alludes to in a latest docuseries that captures the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, gym sessions and numerous concerts across dozens of cities, each lasting 3.5 hours.

Hardy recalls her own showgirl performances as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in high heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the steps to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to start early for my moment so I could recover before I performed. One is sweating the whole time but maintaining this fantasy that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. Who better to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented make-believe, flawlessness and a universe where nobody makes a mistake.