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After a 31-year tenure on the iconic Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! executed their last synchronised kick in 2016. The show, known for its elaborate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to dwindling audience numbers and critical commentators who called it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.

Now, roughly eight years later, the showgirl, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is experiencing a revival.

A King of Glitz

Referred to as the “sultan of sequins”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glitz his signature style, clothing everyone from Marilyn Monroe to music superstars. Recently, a “barely-there” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a shimmering fringed bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie crafted for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“I believe it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they were accustomed to”, he stated in an interview with a newspaper. “Today's artists are striving for a show-stopping, more dramatic, show-stopping, grand statement.”

A Musical Comeback

It’s a look that glided all the way to the heart of popular culture in 2025 thanks to a global pop icon. In the past few months, the music phenomenon wore one of Mackie’s original Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, feathered armbands and shimmering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.

The singer is part of a trend. This year, showgirl inspirations have been adopted by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they danced across concert platforms in sequins, cut-outs and feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. Lipa’s stylist her creative director mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl attitude” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the 1950s, Lipa’s dancers fluttered giant plumed accessories.

Pulling from History

Lipa, Carpenter and other hitmakers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The results are poles apart from the late-century Britney Spears era of short shirts and baggy pants, and street-style dance moves that came before them.

But not everyone are on board with this glamour resurgence. An ex-showgirl, a one-time 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 even modern pop stars.”

A Coveted Retro Look

For gen Z and young adult stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon paid tribute to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a semi-sheer beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he designed for Cher to wear in 1967. Later that year, a singer paid an significant price to buy the Mackie beaded mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, Sabrina Carpenter wore a trio of vintage Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among vintage enthusiasts.

“Showgirls evoke a sense of longing for a historical elegance,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the University of Nevada, who studies the history of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘acceptable’ appeal because it has been modified. It has got all the elegance, the rhinestones and the sparkle but without the nudity.”

A Than Just Style: An Icon of Vegas

Chung says the showgirl image are central to the imagery of Sin City. She points to former mayor Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, the historian says they are still employed as an emblem of the city, showing up at gatherings and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a remaining symbol of Las Vegas glamour,” Chung says.

The Appeal of Transformation

Hardy says the magical transformation of a showgirl is part of the allure. It’s something the singer alludes to in a new documentary series that documents the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense preparations, training and countless shows across multiple nations, each running for 3.5 hours.

She explains her own stage routines as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in stilettos every night”. Her headdress was 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the backstage area three floors below in the lower level. I had to leave early for my entrance so I could recover before I made my entrance. One is sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s easy and gorgeous and magical.”

Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl really lies. In the complexity of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. What better figure to emulate than these performers, who have always represented make-believe, idealism and a universe where nobody misses a mark.