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Following a three-decade run on the Las Vegas Boulevard, the dancers from the production Jubilee! took a final synchronised kick in 2016. The extravaganza, renowned for its elaborate costumes crafted by style icon Bob Mackie, closed its doors due to falling audience numbers and critical reviewers who called it a spectacle “stuck in the past”.

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

The King of Sequins

Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made dramatic showgirl glamour his signature style, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to music superstars. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 commanded $57,600, seven times its estimated price, while a shimmering tasseled bodysuit with shiny wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 performance sold for $19,200.

“I think it looks more attractive for the new generation of stars who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a publication. “Today's artists are pushing toward a glamorous, more spectacular, show-stopping, memorable statement.”

The Musical Resurgence

It’s a look that sashayed all the way to the epicenter of popular culture in 2025 largely due to a global pop icon. Recently, the entertainment titan wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her 12th studio album. The bedazzled bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and shimmering headpiece were ideal for a record named 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 whizzed across world tours in sequins, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, highlighted against theatrical sets. A top stylist Lorenzo Posocco mentioned in an interview with Vogue he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – drawing from pictures from the mid-century, Lipa’s dancers waved giant plumed accessories.

Drawing from the Past

These artists and other hitmakers also take inspiration from classic entertainment forms, including burlesque and dance line references. The results are vastly different from the late-century Britney Spears era of crop tops and utilitarian trousers, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.

But some critics are enthusiastic with this glamour resurgence. A former performer, a former Jubilee! showgirl who danced in the early 2000s says the trend is “puzzling”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “treated as an catch-all phrase covering everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now even modern pop stars.”

A Coveted Retro Look

For millennial and young adult stars, Mackie’s classic designs have become extremely desirable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s earliest clients, Cher, when the star wore a translucent beaded dress made by the designer in 2001, which was similar to one he created for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, a singer 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, the singer wore a collection of retro Mackie designs at the MTV Video Music Awards. They are also a hit among fashion collectors.

“The showgirl aesthetic inspire a sense of longing for a bygone era of glitz,” says a historian, an expert at the University of Nevada, who documents the legacy of showgirls. “Now it is viewed as a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the rhinestones and the shine but without the bare skin.”

More Than Simply Style: An Icon of the City

Chung says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to one-time leader Oscar Goodman who, during official events, was flanked by two showgirls. While Las Vegas currently lacks any showgirl-centric productions, Jung says they are still featured as an emblem of the city, appearing at gatherings and in advertisements. “The showgirl is still a enduring symbol of Vegas glitz and glamour,” she says.

The Appeal of Escape

The former showgirl says the complete change of a stage character is part of the appeal. This idea the singer alludes to in a recent behind-the-scenes film that shows the backstage action from her year-long 2023 Eras tour, which included intense rehearsals, training and numerous concerts across 21 countries, each going on for 3.5 hours.

She explains her own nights in the spotlight as “like completing an endurance race in heels every night”. Her feathered headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to support it all the way up the steps to the performance area from the green rooms three floors below in the lower level. I had to start early for my moment so I could rest before I performed. One is sweating the whole time but crafting this illusion that it’s effortless and gorgeous and dreamlike.”

It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl fantasy really resides. In the busyness of 2025 there is a longing for fantasy. Who better to look to than these performers, who have always represented make-believe, flawlessness and a universe where no one misses a mark.