How 'Showgirl' Became the Dazzling Aesthetic of 2025

After a 31-year stint on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the performers from the production Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The production, renowned for its elaborate costumes designed by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to dwindling audience numbers and critical critics who described it as a spectacle “trapped in time”.

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

A Master of Glitz

Known as the “king of sparkle”, Mackie has made dramatic stage sparkle his defining aesthetic, dressing everyone from screen legends to Madonna. In a recent auction, a “see-through” bodysuit he made for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, far exceeding its projected value, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more appealing for the younger performer who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he stated in an interview with a media outlet. “Today's artists are embracing a glamorous, more theatrical, show-stopping, memorable statement.”

A Pop Culture Revival

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Recently, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her new musical project. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were tailor-made for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

Swift has company. This year, showgirl references have been incorporated by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they whizzed across concert platforms in glitter, revealing designs and plumes, illuminated against overstated sets. A top stylist a fashion expert told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 50s, Lipa’s dancers waved giant feathered fans.

Drawing from History

Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also take inspiration from 19th-century performances, including vaudeville and dance line references. The final look are vastly different from the 90s pop style of revealing tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that came before them.

But not everyone are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. Nancy Hardy, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl title is being “employed as an catch-all phrase encompassing everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”

The Highly Sought-After Retro Style

For millennial and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, Zendaya gave a nod to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent sequined dress made by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer 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 collection of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a popular item among fashion collectors.

“This style bring about nostalgia for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, head of special collections at the an academic institution, who studies the story of showgirls. “Today it is considered a sort of ‘safe’ allure because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the shine but without the bare skin.”

A Than Simply Style: An Icon of Las Vegas

The expert says this figure are integral to the imagery of Vegas. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was accompanied by two showgirls. Although Las Vegas currently lacks any traditional showgirl productions, Jung says they are still employed as an symbol of the city, appearing at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Vegas glitz and glamour,” the expert says.

An Allure of Escape

Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl persona is part of the attraction. It’s something Taylor Swift references in a new docuseries that shows the off-camera action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense practice sessions, workouts and countless concerts across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.

The performer explains her own showgirl performances as “like running a marathon in heels every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my moment so I could catch my breath before I made my entrance. One is perspiring the whole time but crafting this fantasy that it’s effortless and beautiful and dreamlike.”

Maybe this is where the appeal of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. Who better to look to than these performers, who have always represented make-believe, flawlessness and a world where no one falters.