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Following a three-decade run on the Las Vegas strip, the dancers from the spectacle Jubilee! took a final choreographed kick in 2016. The show, renowned for its ornate costumes created by American fashion designer Bob Mackie, came to an end due to falling audience numbers and disappointed critics who described it as a spectacle “a relic of another era”.

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

A Sultan of Glitz

Referred to as the “master of glitz”, Mackie has made over-the-top showgirl glitz his defining aesthetic, clothing everyone from Hollywood icons to Madonna. Recently, a “naked” bodysuit he designed for Cher in 1978 fetched $57,600, well over its initial estimate, while a metallic fringed bodysuit with lamé wings that Mackie designed for Tina Turner for a 1977 show sold for $19,200.

“In my view it looks more appealing for the emerging artists who is looking for something other than what they knew from childhood”, he told a newspaper. “Contemporary performers are embracing a show-stopping, more spectacular, attention-grabbing, memorable statement.”

A Pop Culture Revival

It’s a look that made its way all the way to the centre of popular culture in 2025 propelled by a global pop icon. Earlier this year, the cultural juggernaut wore one of Mackie’s vintage Jubilee! costumes on the cover of her latest record. The rhinestone encrusted bra and thong, ostrich-feather armbands and sparkly headpiece were ideal for a record named The Life of a Showgirl.

She isn't alone. This year, glamorous nods have been embraced by pop stars including Dua Lipa as they danced across arena stages in sparkles, revealing designs and ostrich feathers, spotlighted against overstated sets. A top stylist a fashion expert told a fashion magazine he wanted to bring “a showgirl spirit” to her Radical Optimism tour – inspired by pictures from the 50s, her performers wafted giant ostrich feather fans.

Pulling from Tradition

Lipa, Carpenter and other chart toppers also reference 19th-century entertainment forms, including vaudeville and dance line references. The outcome are worlds away from the 1990s era pop style of revealing tops and baggy pants, and urban dance moves that were popular earlier.

But not everyone are convinced with this showgirl renaissance. Nancy Hardy, a ex- Jubilee! showgirl who entertained in the 00s says the trend is “bemusing”. She thinks the word showgirl is being “employed as an umbrella term including everything from The Radio City Rockettes to Broadway performers and now apparently modern pop stars.”

The Highly Sought-After Vintage Style

For younger and modern stars, Mackie’s vintage designs have become highly covetable. In 2024, a style icon honored to one of Mackie’s iconic muses, Cher, when the actor wore a translucent beaded dress designed by the designer in 2001, which was inspired by one he made for Cher to wear in 1967. Months after, a singer paid an undisclosed sum to buy the Mackie fringed mini dress she had worn previously 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 popular item among vintage enthusiasts.

“This style bring about fond memories for a past glamour,” says an archivist, a curator at the an academic institution, who documents the history of showgirls. “Now it is seen as a sort of ‘safe’ sexy because it has been adapted. It has got all the sophistication, the sparkles and the sparkle but without the nudity.”

A Than Just Fashion: An Icon of the City

She says the showgirl image are key to the iconography of Sin City. She points to ex-mayor Oscar Goodman who, during public appearances, was accompanied by two showgirls. While Las Vegas does not host any traditional showgirl productions, the historian says they are still employed as an logo of the city, showing up at gatherings and in marketing. “The showgirl is still a lasting icon of Vegas glitz and glamour,” Chung says.

An Appeal of Escape

Hardy says the complete change of a showgirl is part of the appeal. This is a notion the singer hints at in a new documentary series that captures the off-camera action from her massive 2023 Eras tour, which included gruelling rehearsals, training and numerous concerts across dozens of cities, each going on for 3.5 hours.

Hardy describes her own showgirl performances as “similar to extreme physical exertion in heels every night”. Her headdress weighed 34lbs. “I had to wear it all the way up the staircase to the platform from the dressing rooms three floors below in the basement. I had to start early for my cue so I could recover before I performed. You are working hard the whole time but creating this image that it’s easy and beautiful and ethereal.”

It could be this is where the fascination of the showgirl really resides. In the chaos of 2025 there is a desire for escapism. What better figure to look to than such icons, who have always represented make-believe, perfection and a universe where no one falters.