Showgirls (from left to right) Carrie Tackett, Jill Kello Landness, Inna Bashta, Svetlana Failla, Niki Adamo-Schwebel, Heather Victorson, Sandy Towns, Donna Browning, Shirley Allen and Joy Sharp pose on stage at the Stradust. The ladies are wearing costumes designed by Stephen Yearick for "Enter the Night." Photo by Christine H. Wetzel. Niki Adamo-Schwebel (above) and Jill Kello Landness (below) strike nostalgic poses in costumes from "Enter the Night." Sandy Towns in a costume she wore during her seven-year run at the Stardust.

When Stephen Yearick came to Las Vegas a decade ago, he thought it was just another in-store appearance for his clothing line, which goes by the same name.

Au contraire. That visit to Fashion Show mall turned into a partnership with Stardust Hotel & Casino. That partnership turned into more than 100 Stephen Yearick-designed costumes and gowns.

Now, with the show, "Into the Night," long over and the Stardust on the brink of implosion, Yearick finds himself again designing gowns for the legendary hotel's performers.

This time around, though, it's for ladies who hung up their dancing shoes years ago. They need something dazzling for what will surely be the most bittersweet party of the year: The Cast and Crew Reunion at the Stardust.

"I'm doing a couple nifty outfits for the party," Yearick said. Among them is one for Aki, the last star of the long-running "Lido de Paris" review.

Yearick's experience in show business reaches all the way from the red carpet to Miss America gowns and back around to costume designing.

The advantage in designing an evening gown for a client over something that will go on the stage comes down to one thing: less opinions.

"With a show you have all the producers, directors, and all those people, giving their input," Yearick said. "I really just want the person who's wearing it to feel good."

For years he made that happen on the set of "Into the Night," designing the costumes and gowns in the opening number, the complete finale, specialty acts and more. On most occasions the number of designs Yearick put together doubled that of those that were actually used. Like the performers who wore his garments, he would keep going and going until he got it just right.

"My thing is to make people in the audience go, 'Oh, this is really, really fabulous,' " Yearick said. The high slits, elaborate head gear, intricate beading and pure glamour of Yearick's "Into the Night" designs inspired nothing but awe. The trick, according to Yearick, was in creating something the audience had either never seen before or only seen on their TV sets. When the untouchable is right in front of you, it's impossible not to be impressed.

For Yearick, a designer who was maintaining his own collection while still putting out costumes for the Stardust, his job was simple. "I just had to make the girls look beautiful," he said. "But they were beautiful already with beautiful bodies. It wasn't hard at all."