How 'Showgirl' Emerged as the Dazzling Look of 2025
After a long-running tenure on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the revue Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes crafted by celebrated designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to declining audience numbers and disappointed commentators who labeled it a spectacle “a relic of another era”.
Today, almost a decade later, showgirls, or at least the glamorous showgirl look, is making a comeback.
A King of Glitz
Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glitz his signature style, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he created for Cher in 1978 sold for $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a metallic tasseled bodysuit with reflective wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.
“I believe it looks more enticing for the new generation of stars who is desiring something other than what they grew up with”, he told a media outlet. “New stars are embracing a show-stopping, more dramatic, attention-grabbing, entrance-making statement.”
The Mainstream Resurgence
It’s a look that glided all the way to the epicenter of mainstream fashion in 2025 thanks to Taylor Swift. In the past few months, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s classic Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The bedazzled bra and thong, feathered armbands and glittering headpiece were perfect for a record called The Life of a Showgirl.
She has company. This year, glamorous nods have been adopted by music artists including Miley Cyrus as they danced across concert platforms in sequins, cut-outs and ostrich feathers, illuminated against theatrical sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco explained to a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a stage persona” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant feathered fans.
Pulling from Tradition
These artists and other successful musicians also reference 19th-century performances, including vaudeville and chorus line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century teen pop of short shirts and utilitarian trousers, and hip-hop inspired dance moves that came before them.
But some critics are on board with this showgirl renaissance. An ex-showgirl, a one-time Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the early 2000s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word term is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently today's icons.”
A Highly Sought-After Vintage Style
For younger and modern stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become incredibly sought-after. In 2024, a famous actress paid tribute to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the actress wore a see-through beaded dress created by the designer in 2001, which was reminiscent of one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Subsequently, another pop star paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie tasseled mini dress she had worn earlier in the year to perform at the Grammys. In September, the singer wore a series of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.
“The showgirl aesthetic bring about a sense of longing for a past glamour,” says Su Kim Chung, an expert at the an academic institution, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Currently it is considered a sort of ‘toned-down’ sexy because it has been updated. It has got all the elegance, the crystals and the shine but without the nudity.”
A Than Simply Fashion: An Icon of Las Vegas
She says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Vegas. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during civic functions, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any showgirl-based productions, Jung says they are still used as an emblem of the city, appearing at conventions and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting symbol of Las Vegas spectacle,” Chung says.
An Appeal of Escape
Hardy says the complete change of a stage character is part of the attraction. It’s something Swift references in a new documentary series that captures the behind-the-scenes action from her extensive 2023 Eras tour, which included exhausting rehearsals, gym sessions and countless concerts across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.
The performer explains her own nights in the spotlight as “comparable to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to carry it all the way up the staircase to the stage from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to leave early for my cue so I could recover before I performed. You are sweating the whole time but creating this fantasy that it’s easy and gorgeous and dreamlike.”
Maybe this is where the true allure of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a desire for a break from reality. Is there anyone better to look to than such icons, who have always embodied dreams, idealism and a universe where no one misses a mark.