How 'Showgirl' Became the Sparkling Style of 2025
After a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the production Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed commentators who described it as a spectacle “stuck in the past”.
Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is back.
A King of Sparkle
Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from screen legends to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie created for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.
“I think it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a media outlet. “Contemporary performers are pushing toward a theatrical, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
A Mainstream Comeback
It’s a look that made its way all the way to the heart of mainstream fashion in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, plumed armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by pop stars including Miley Cyrus as they zoomed across arena stages in sequins, revealing designs and feathers, highlighted against camp sets. Her fashion curator her creative director mentioned in an interview with a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant feathered fans.
Drawing from the Past
Modern stars and other chart toppers also draw on historical performances, including classic theater and dance line references. The final look are poles apart from the late-century Britney Spears era of crop tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that preceded this trend.
But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “confusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now seemingly Taylor Swift.”
A Highly Sought-After Retro Style
For younger and millennial stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actress wore a translucent sequined dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star 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, the singer wore a series of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.
“This style inspire nostalgia for a past glamour,” says an archivist, head of special collections at the University of Nevada, who studies the story of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘toned-down’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the exposure.”
A Than Just Fashion: An Symbol of Vegas
She says this figure are integral to the iconography of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, being present at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Vegas glamour,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Transformation
Nancy Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the allure. This is a notion Swift alludes to in a recent behind-the-scenes film that captures the off-camera action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting practice sessions, gym sessions and countless shows across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.
She explains her own stage routines as “comparable to running a marathon in stilettos every night”. Her feathered headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the platform from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to head up ahead of time for my entrance so I could recover before I went on stage. One is sweating the whole time but crafting this image that it’s simple and beautiful and magical.”
Perhaps this is where the appeal of the showgirl really is found. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Is there anyone better to turn to than such icons, who have always embodied dreams, flawlessness and a world where no one falters.