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Following a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last perfectly timed kick in 2016. The production, famous for its ornate costumes designed by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Today, almost a decade later, the showgirl persona, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is experiencing a revival.

A Master of Sparkle

Referred to as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made theatrical stage sparkle his trademark look, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Madonna. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more enticing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they were accustomed to”, he explained to a publication. “Contemporary performers are embracing a theatrical, more dramatic, breathtaking, grand statement.”

A Pop Culture Revival

It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift isn't alone. This year, glamorous nods have been incorporated by pop stars including Sabrina Carpenter as they zoomed across concert platforms in glitter, cut-outs and feathers, highlighted against overstated 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 – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, the backup dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.

Drawing from the Past

Modern stars and other hitmakers also reference classic entertainment forms, including classic theater and dance line references. The outcome are poles apart from the 90s teen pop of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.

But certain observers are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”

The Highly Sought-After Retro Look

For gen Z and millennial stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actress 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, Miley Cyrus paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn at an awards show to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among fashion collectors.

“Showgirls inspire a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the glitter but without the bare skin.”

More Than Simply Style: An Symbol of Vegas

The expert says showgirls are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still used as an logo of the city, appearing at corporate events and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” the expert says.

The Appeal of Escape

The former showgirl says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the appeal. It’s something Swift alludes to in a recent documentary series that captures the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, gym sessions and 149 concerts across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She explains her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to extreme physical exertion in high heels every night”. Her headpiece weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my entrance so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is working hard the whole time but creating this image that it’s simple and gorgeous and magical.”

Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for a break from reality. Who better to turn to than these performers, who have always represented fantasy, flawlessness and a world where nobody makes a mistake.