dreamaboutwhathappens

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

The Life Of A Showgirl: It's Beautiful | October 3, 2025

Bob Mackie vintage Lorraine Schwartz custom

Just as it would be impossible to do a showgirl-themed album without referencing Bob Mackie, it is near impossible to overstate the influence this iconic designer had on costume design. He’s responsible for some of Cher’s most iconic ensembles, but he was also at the helm for the costumes from Jubilee! — one of Las Vegas’ longest running live shows. Jubilee! put on over 20,000 shows over 35 years between July 1981 and February 2016. 

Taylor described Showgirl’s photoshoot “represent[ing] the [end] of her night.” She expressed a desire to “glamorize all the different aspects of how [The Eras Tour] felt.” Offstage, there’s a tension in seeing the shiny, smoothed artifice of the showgirl caught shedding her costume for the evening. A dissolution of the fantasy to reveal just a person beneath. I look forward to parsing this concept further once we overlay these images on Taylor’s lyrical scaffolding from this album.

Taylor is diligent when it comes to her visual world building and showgirl aesthetics has a rich history. If I had to guess, when Taylor sought to create an album that hinged on showgirl visuals, she reached out to the famed burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese for an assist and history lesson to make her vision as authentic as possible. When Von Teese set about preparing for her latest residency in Vegas - A Jubilant Revue - she sought to honour the legacy of the original Jubilee! production by reaching into the show’s actual costume archives, aided by The Last Showgirl stylist Jose Rodrigo. Von Teese told Vogue that the original costumes had been “locked up” in the downstairs of the Jubilee Theater for about a decade. She consequently jumped at the opportunity to give them new life on stage. “I thought it was a great time to be able to show them off again,” she said, adding, “I loved the extravagance and opulence [of Jubilee!]—the feathers and rhinestones.” Von Teese cameoed in Taylor’s “Bejeweled” music video from 2022’s Midnights. According to Von Teese, the Jubilee! costume budget alone was equivalent to $12 million. Von Teese supplied costumes from her longtime collaborator Catherine D’Lish when the pair recreated her iconic martini glass choreography. It’s possible she offered a hand here in passing along more of Jubilee!’s original costumes for Showgirl’s album visuals. 

Photos by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Jeff Schied, and courtesy of Bally’s

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

midnights is such a perfect incredible amazing album

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it’s rapturous

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i also thought it was so cute when talking about the las vegas super bowl travis said that it is the first time he can actually see what his suite looks like. and taylor was like “cause you’ve never have a camera focused on that right?” and he was like “yeah and it’s😁so😁cool”

and suddenly we have seen him turn something that could’ve been a stressor for her into a positive! wow

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Holy shit the part where they’re talking about the media scrutiny and Taylor says that Travis thinks the outrageous and outlandish rumours and headlines are hilarious, which has completely changed how she operates is sooooooooo telling.

The whole bit where she’s like “if he sees things and he just thinks they’re funny and it doesn’t affect his day, that changes how I metabolize these things” is just like. Very loud iykwim.

We’ve come a long way from the “peace” intro in LPSS where she talks about the anxiety of the headlines about her partner or trying to block out the noise of the weird rumours of the Lavender Haze promo. The idea that he laughs it off and calls their bullshit and moves on with his day meaning SHE can do the same and not have to worry about how to futilely prevent them must have opened up so much space in her head for other things. And by contrast him saying he was worried at first about how SHE would react to the bizarre “theories” about them because he didn’t want to push her away, but seeing her face it calmly reassured him that they were fine together and could brush it all off is reflective of how we’ve sort of seen them operate and illuminating into their dynamic and their approach to all this stuff.

Anyway they seem like a great team.

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Oh I’m having a vision of a music video that is literally her getting off the stage but obviously everything is dramatized and that’s why all the eras tour dancers were involved

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And, baby...

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tumblerinas what’s THE symbol for this new era?

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and though i can't recall your face, i still got love for you

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ppl will comment negatively on swiftie posts and then be like “omfg the swifties found me. im in danger”

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taylor is really showing the world that you can leave a situation that isn’t serving you anymore and it’ll be really scary and hard, but there’s something so much better waiting on the other side of that. i’m just so glad that women are getting to see her as an example idk

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🗓 18th Aug 2017: Taylor completely blacked out all of her social media accounts.

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One of my favorite moments of the episode was when Taylor was recounting when she learned that she finally owned all of her music and Travis mentioned that he started to cry alongside her and Jason said “that’s the Kelce way.” I just really enjoy seeing these two prominent figures in this highly masculine job/space normalize crying, showing emotion and being vulnerable, especially considering their guest they were interviewing has been raked over the coals time and time again for being “too emotional.”

[dreamaboutwhathappens]

TAYLOR SWIFT #something about never changing but never staying the same or whatever 🥹💕

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[dreamaboutwhathappens]

it's frightening, it's rapturous, it's beautiful...

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