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After a long-running stint on the Las Vegas strip, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last choreographed kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to dwindling audience numbers and unimpressed reviewers who called it a spectacle “trapped in time”.

Now, almost a decade later, the showgirl, or at least the showgirl style, is making a comeback.

A Master of Sequins

Dubbed the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made theatrical showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. Earlier this month, a “naked” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its estimated price, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more attractive for the emerging artists who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he explained to a newspaper. “New stars are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, breathtaking, entrance-making statement.”

The Musical Comeback

It’s a look that made its way all the way to the epicenter of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 largely due to a chart-topping superstar. Earlier this year, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and sparkly headpiece were perfect for a record titled The Life of a Showgirl.

The singer has company. This year, showgirl inspirations have been incorporated by music artists including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, cut-outs and feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. Lipa’s stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers wafted giant plumed accessories.

Drawing from History

Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century teen pop of crop tops and baggy pants, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.

But not everyone are convinced with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an broad label including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”

The Coveted Retro Look

For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s retro designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, Zendaya honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the star wore a semi-sheer 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 at an awards show 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 collectors.

“Showgirls bring about a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says a historian, a curator at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the history of showgirls. “Currently it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the glamour, the sparkles and the glitter but without the bare skin.”

More Than Just Style: An Symbol of the City

Chung says this figure are key to the iconography of Vegas. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas currently lacks any traditional showgirl productions, Chung says they are still used as an symbol of the city, being present at gatherings and in promotional material. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.

An Appeal of Escape

Hardy says the transformative effect of a showgirl is part of the appeal. This idea Swift references in a latest behind-the-scenes film that documents the backstage action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting preparations, workouts and 149 performances across multiple nations, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She describes her own nights in the spotlight as “similar to running a marathon in high heels every night”. Her headpiece was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the stage from the green rooms three floors below in the underground. I had to leave early for my moment so I could catch my breath before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s simple and beautiful and dreamlike.”

It could be this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. What better figure to emulate than showgirls, who have always represented fantasy, idealism and a world where no one falters.