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Following a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The extravaganza, known for its elaborate costumes created by style icon Bob Mackie, ended its run due to falling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.

Today, roughly eight years later, showgirls, or at least the showgirl aesthetic, is making a comeback.

The King of Sequins

Dubbed the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glamour his defining aesthetic, outfitting everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, seven times its initial estimate, while a silver and gold fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more enticing for the younger performer who is looking for something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “New stars are striving for a show-stopping, more spectacular, breathtaking, memorable statement.”

The Pop Culture Revival

It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of the cultural zeitgeist in 2025 propelled by Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather 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 Miley Cyrus as they whizzed across concert platforms in sparkles, revealing designs and plumes, highlighted against theatrical sets. Her fashion curator Lorenzo Posocco told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, her performers fluttered giant ostrich feather fans.

Drawing from Tradition

Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including burlesque and chorus line references. The results are poles apart from the 90s teen pop of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that preceded this trend.

But certain observers are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a former Jubilee! showgirl who performed in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title 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 Vintage Style

For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s first major stars, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, Miley Cyrus paid an significant price to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn previously to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among collectors.

“The showgirl aesthetic evoke fond memories for a bygone era of glitz,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the a Las Vegas university, who studies the legacy of showgirls. “Today it is viewed as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been updated. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the shine but without the bare skin.”

A Than Simply Style: An Icon of the City

The expert says this figure are central to the identity of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was surrounded by two showgirls. Even though Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still used as an logo of the city, showing up at corporate events and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.

An Appeal of Illusion

The former showgirl says the transformative effect of a stage character is part of the allure. This idea Taylor Swift references in a recent docuseries that shows the behind-the-scenes action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, gym sessions and numerous shows across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She explains her own showgirl performances as “similar to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the stairs to the performance area from the dressing rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could recover before I made my entrance. You’re perspiring the whole time but maintaining this image that it’s effortless and stunning and dreamlike.”

Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really lies. In the busyness of 2025 there is a craving for fantasy. What better figure to look to than these performers, who have always embodied dreams, idealism and a universe where nobody falters.