Fans often assume that Taylor Swift’s songs are drawn directly from her life. We were introduced to her as the small-town country girl. Then she moved to New York City and became a girl-boss-cum-pop-star. Various romantic entanglements ensued. After a pandemic-era retreat to the woods, she toured the world and got engaged.
The now-familiar sight of Ms. Swift cheering on the sidelines for her football hero fiancé is a far cry from the self-reliant glitter and grit you might expect from her new album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” It was announced with images of her in opera gloves and a bustle of flamingo-colored feathers, a vintage rhinestone headdress with a matching cutout bra — classic showgirl, obvious as a 50-foot neon sign. But what does it mean that she is now — or maybe has always been — a showgirl? Can Ms. Swift’s latest transformation be more than just another change on the costume rack?
Because it should matter: Once you’re a showgirl, you’ll never be anyone’s girl next door again.
Seeing Ms. Swift clad in a dark corset and fishnets or a few strings of diamanté is the most revealing image she’s ever presented, but a showgirl is, by design, distant. Despite her near nudity, she remains untouchable — not just because of the rows of seats and lights between her and the audience but also because of her characteristic aloofness. She may be parading her assets in front of a paying crowd, but it’s done with the attitude of a princess being presented at court, not a stripper sliding down the pole.
Of course, the life of a showgirl, both the onstage flash and the offstage reality of the flesh-and-rhinestone women, offers a mother lode of material for a songwriter looking for stories to tell. There was the Boston debutante who appeared in a revival of the Ziegfeld Follies and became Hemingway’s houseguest. The blonde who stepped on the Tropicana Hotel’s showroom stage as a SoCal beach bunny and stepped off it as the nation’s most notorious mob wife. The teenage go-go dancer whose time wearing glitter and plumes at the Dunes transformed her into an ageless Hollywood horror queen. C.Z. Guest, Geri Rosenthal and Elvira may not have much else in common, but they all wore the headdress and heels.
The history of the showgirl stretches back to the music halls of 19th-century Paris, but it snapped into focus during the early 20th century. Then, Broadway shows like “The Ziegfeld Follies” and “Earl Carroll Vanities” included specialty acts, but their most significant, most lavish production numbers were all about the showgirl.
Showgirls appealed to men for the obvious scantily clad reasons, but women could marvel at the outfits, the hairdos, the aspirational dazzle. The Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee costumes for Las Vegas’s “Jubilee!” (which opened in 1981) were so sparkle-heavy that their construction reportedly caused a Swarovski shortage. The skimpier yet more luxurious attire set showgirls apart from chorus girls, but the fact that they didn’t strip and appeared en masse made them unlike burlesque dancers. Dozens of beautiful women, clad in the most extravagant jewels, furs and feathers, gliding across giant, often surrealistic sets — all of it dazzles, with the giddy sensory overload of a fireworks show.
Over nearly a century, the showgirl spectacular got bigger: Herds of performers moving in sync around a replica of the Titanic or in the case of Reno’s “Hello Hollywood, Hello!” an actual 737 jet. But the huge casts, oversize sets and multiple changes of lavish costumes were expensive and time-consuming to maintain. Public taste in song and dance shifted from Broadway to music videos, from armies of dancers moving in sync to individuals performing feats of skill. As of 2025, the big-production extravaganza focused on the showgirl is nearly extinct.
The showgirl is tough. Her headdress may look like a fluff of glitter and feathers, but it can weigh up to 25 pounds. In the wings, her serene glide across the stage turns into a mad dash — jumping into and out of outfits, running up and down stairs, two shows a night, six nights a week, year after year. For all of her shimmering beauty, the showgirl is the blue-collar laborer of entertainment. She punches a time clock, grumbles along with her co-workers, pops an aspirin for her aching neck and hopes the sitter shows up on time. Lights, camera, bitch, smile.
Ms. Swift has talked about the exhilaration and exhaustion of the Eras tour, changing costumes and dodging set pieces from Glendale to Gelsenkirchen, hustling through her paces alongside a coterie of dancers, a band and a slew of techs and grips. A woman whose sparkle and strut are what make her effort look effortless is probably part of the showgirl’s appeal for Ms. Swift: I may be a billionaire, but I’m busting my tail.
That’s also where Ms. Swift departs from the archetype. Showgirls may have a solo spotlight moment, but they don’t run the show. Onstage, it’s glitter, precision and multiplicity. Backstage, rows of adjacent identical dressing room mirrors reflect rivalries and confidences, and there are no handlers or personal assistants, just co-workers fastening the back of a neckpiece or lending an extra pair of tights. An early image from “The Life of a Showgirl” featured Ms. Swift at the head of a group of women in matching yellow plumed headdresses and spangled bikinis; she wears the uniform, the image suggests, so she’s one member of the team.
It makes sense that Ms. Swift would want to present herself as a part of a hard-working yet fabulous sisterhood. She’s long been a pop star whose fans consider her more personal bestie than public icon, a billionaire going for benevolence in an era of eat the rich.
Still, when it comes right down to it, she’s not simply dancing the steps the choreographer teaches her and wearing the costume the designer pins on her: She created the show. She’s not watching her bank account and auditioning for her job every six months: She’s the boss.
She’s not simply part of a line of identical — by implication, replaceable — synchronized performers: She’s the star.
Lissa Townsend Rodgers is the author of “Shameless: Women of the Underworld,” a collection of biographies of gangster women.
Source photographs by Matt Winkelmeyer and surachetkhamsuk/Getty Images
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post Taylor Swift Is No Showgirl appeared first on New York Times.
