'A showgirl is in everybody': Is the life of a showgirl as glamorous as Taylor Swift makes it seem?

Feathers, jewels and sequins twinkle under the spotlights. She smiles widely and performs a perfectly-planned routine as an adoring audience goes wild. This is the life of a showgirl, but when she exits backstage and takes off the costume, is it so glamorous?

When pop legend Taylor Swift announced her new album The Life of a Showgirl, she said she wanted to “glamorise” how it felt to be on the Eras Tour (the highest-grossing tour of all time) – but the songs would be about life offstage, the moments away from the spotlight.

Cover artwork shows Swift in a beaded costume, reminiscent of Las Vegas showgirls, plunged underwater. She explained: “When I’m on tour, I have the same day every single day. And my day ends with me in a bathtub, not usually in a bedazzled dress.”

“That’s how that felt to be at the end of the night. You won’t be able to get to bed till four in the morning after this. But you had to jump through 50 million hoops in this obstacle course that is your show. And you did it. You got two more in a row. But you did it tonight.”

Swift is one of the biggest pop stars of all time. She is worth billions. But there are ‘showgirls’ worldwide who are spreading joy through performing in their own way – who also experience the glamour and occasional ugliness of show business.

A typical image of a showgirl might be of those in Las Vegas or the Moulin Rouge, in a chorus line with feathers in their hair. The term is also simply used to describe a performer known for her elaborate costumes and captivating stage presence.

Zoe Charles, founder and headmistress at The Cheek of It! School of Burlesque and Cabaret in London, said: “I have the image, like everyone, of a statuesque showgirl. She’s got the pose. She’s a glamorous entertainer. But how I use it more, and what it means on a deeper level, is the power of being seen, and that is something that is innate in all of us.”

Charles says she “feels nothing but joy” at the title of Swift’s album The Life of a Showgirl, although she acknowledges there was some backlash in the burlesque community around a pop star using the ‘showgirl’ aesthetic. Charles explains: “A lot of women are tired of being performers and tired of grinding away. 

“There’s not much money in it and there’s a huge icon who is taking it on… But I don’t feel that way at all. I love that she’s taking on the archetype of a showgirl. Everyone should have the opportunity to do that. It is in everybody, whether that’s on the stage or just in your life.”

She points out that the idea of the showgirl goes back to ancient times when people worshipped goddesses. Charles calls it a “rite of passage” and says that embracing femininity, regardless of gender, is increasingly important amid “dangerous waters”.

Conservatives are calling for a return to traditional gender roles, and the ‘tradwife’ trend – which confines a woman to homemaking – is booming on social media. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s presidency threatens women’s rights further, with access to abortion services and healthcare being rolled back at speed in the US.

Burlesque performer Ebony Silk says: “In a world where women’s rights are being eroded away again, it’s nice to be that political statement on stage that is just a big fingers up to people that think that we can’t do what we want with our own bodies.”

“Being a burlesque showgirl, to me, means taking people out of a world that appears to be burning around them for three hours and making them feel like they’re in a wonderful little haven of happiness and joy,” she adds.

Around 70% of audience members at a burlesque show are women, according to Ebony Silk’s estimates.

Ebony Silk, who is based in north-east England, started out in strip clubs before discovering burlesque. She has performed for 17 years, during which there have been “peaks and troughs” in the industry. Recessions, the cost of living crisis and the pandemic have all impacted workflow.

As a committee member for variety, burlesque and drag at Equity, the union for the performing arts and entertainment industries, Ebony Silk campaigns for better working conditions and rights for performers. She says she has been fortunate in many places she has worked but “there’s always room for improvement”.

“There’re places you turn up and they think a disabled toilet is a suitable changing area for you,” Ebony Silk adds.

Fellow Equity member Stephanie Greer, who chairs the union’s Class Network which creates more opportunities for working class people in the performing arts, says: “There is a precarity, especially within circus, variety and burlesque, because it’s such a gig thing. It’s not the same as being on a soap or in a West End Show.”

Greer is an actor and aerialist and, while she wouldn’t necessarily label herself a ‘showgirl’, she too wears sensational costumes and captivates an audience. She agrees with Ebony Silk that working conditions vary.

“Due to the nature of the type of work that I do, it is normally outside. There’s a lot of Portaloos and gazebos going on. I enjoy music festivals, but it’s not going to be a glamorous setup,” she adds.

Greer has heard from artists who have felt their belongings might not be safe while performing, or they feel vulnerable getting changed in a public area. 

“If audiences knew behind the scenes the lack of glamour that goes on…,” she laughs. “I imagine for showgirls, it probably wasn’t that glamorous for them behind the scenes either.”

There’s a chance that Taylor Swift’s new album could give a boost to the industry, with event organisers already booking burlesque dancers for album launch parties. It might also lead to “intrigue” in the aesthetic, inspiring interest in local shows.

Victoria Rose, a striptease artist, burlesque performer and sex worker, points out that Taylor Swift has “always had a nod to [the industry] in her videos and imagery”. The pop star featured Dita Von Teese, who is internationally recognised as the Queen of Burlesque, in her music video for ‘Bejeweled’. 

Swift is “creating a trend” through The Life of a Showgirl, Victoria Rose says. She has seen adverts looking for people with similar costumes to Swift for events, but she adds that “if you’re from a working class background or you’re new to burlesque, then it’s quite hard to get those kinds of costumes if you can’t make them”.

Victoria Rose admits she is not a fan of Swift but she believes that “if anything, it’s going to bring more attention to burlesque”. She says the industry has far bigger problems than Swift borrowing the aesthetic.

“We are now in an economic problem,” she says. “We’ve got the rich getting richer. We’ve got a wealth divide, and now that’s going to come even more. If you’ve got money, you can afford to promote yourself. You can afford to make good costumes.

“You can pay someone to do your social media. There’s becoming a wealth divide in burlesque. There are people doing full time corporate jobs coming into this. I have no problem with people doing this on the side of their job as a creative outlet, but it is creating an unfair advantage.”

Arts and nightlife venues where burlesque is typically performed are closing down due to the financial pressures on the industry in Britain. 

“We need to keep these places open and keep going out and experiencing joy because the world is on fire,” Victoria Rose says.

Tempest Rose, founder of the House of Burlesque, says the life of a showgirl is “like being part of this secret underground world that says to people come away from everyday life and experience something magical, fantastical, glamorous”.

“At its core, for me, it’s about making people smile and forget the mundane every day. As a woman, I love how kickass burlesque is, and how it allows women to take control of our own narratives, our sexuality, our sensuality. And then, as an artist, I love that it combines that with just this incredibly over-the-top visual feast.”

Tempest Rose says that burlesque should be underground because that is part of the intrigue of it, but that The Life of a Showgirl album should be seen as an “opportunity” for the industry to “enjoy a little bit more time in the spotlight”. She adds that Taylor Swift can “interpret it however she wants”. 

“Nobody owns the showgirl. What I would love to happen is people use it to go and explore all different types of showgirls, and hopefully they’ll find burlesque showgirls. It’s really just a magnification. I don’t think it’s right to superimpose onto another artist somebody else’s vision of what they think a showgirl should be.”

“Showgirls are all about standing out, being noticed, and so much of what women experience tells them to blend in and be small and dim their light,” Tempest Rose adds. “The showgirl puts all of that in the bin, and she says: ‘I’m going to be the shiniest, most, sparkliest thing, and you’re all going to look at me.’ I suppose that’s the radical nature of the showgirl.”

Jo King, better known as Goodtime Mama Jojo, is a British burlesque legend who has been honoured in the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. She says that being a showgirl has “always been about joy”. 

She started performing 48 years ago, and she was the first person to open a school which taught burlesque, striptease and pole dancing in Britain. The London Academy of Burlesque officially opened in 2000.

Mama Jojo has taught thousands of people, including lawyers, medical professionals and others who worked jobs “where it was restricted and could be mundane or harrowing”. These people found fun in burlesque.

“I’ve done other jobs, but this has been an absolute joy to me. Being a showgirl is fascinating and funny. I very rarely have woken up without a sequin stuck in a place that it probably shouldn’t be, or a feather sauntering around my home. It’s full of sparkle.”

She says that a “showgirl is anybody who gets up on stage and performs a show”. She believes Taylor Swift is only following others like Madonna, Britney Spears or Elton John (who Mama Jojo calls “one of the greatest showgirls of all time”).

“I think the truth is that anybody of any gender, of any persuasion, of any background, if they get up and perform on a stage, then surely they are a showperson – though showgirl is a lovely old word.”

That is a feeling echoed by the performers. Greer says that “drag artists are probably the most showgirl of everyone, aren’t they?”

Drag queen, burlesque artist and cabaret producer Dolly Trolley says: “I feel my most “showgirl” in all my offstage moments, the ridiculous ones where I look at myself and say ‘silly little life’. 

“For example: getting up early to steam a penguin costume, staying up till 4am rhinestoning a bra, taking the tube with three suitcases and a wig that’s half my own height, asking someone to help me down the stairs to the stage because I’ve attached 24 balloons to myself and can’t see my feet, finding the correct bit of fence to air my costumes out on when performing at a music festival, or sitting in my tights shovelling a tub of pasta into my gob between shows – that to me is the life of a showgirl.”

Dolly went to the University of Oxford to study maths and had a “very different trajectory”, but then she discovered drag and it “snowballed”. One day, she found herself quitting her job and “embarking on the life of a showgirl full time” and she has never looked back.

She believes that everyone has it in them to be a showgirl. It might not be on the international stage graced by Taylor Swift or even on stage at all, but people can bring glitz into everyday life – whether that is wearing the outlandish accessory or snapping your fingers and having a shimmy while you walk down the street listening to music with your headphones on.

“If it’s something that’s crossed your mind or you’re reading this with intrigue, I think that means you’ve got an itch,” Dolly says. “Scratch it babe, take a leap. It’ll take guts but it’s rewarding in so many ways. Find some local, independent cabaret shows to go see and let them inspire you, and find ones with a diverse lineup of performers of different genders, body types, ethnicities and performance styles. It’ll give you the bug.”

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