Dita Von Teese

[~Fashionista~]

Stunning!

 

[christina126]

She looks like perfection in the Dior gown!!!

 

[Luti21]

part that everything about her is like perfect she has amazing eyes. stunning.

 

[style_savy]

Dita Von Teese in Dior by John Galliano
instyle

 

[serenade]

Absolutely

 

[tigerrouge]

Interview from The Observer, 8 July 2007.

This much I know

[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Dita Von Teese, stripper, 34, London[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Interview by Barbara Ellen

[/FONT] Burlesque is not a style or a fashion statement. It's about striptease.

I always wanted to be someone. I had an Aunt Opal, who was very painted - green eye shadow, drawn-on beauty marks, flaming red hair. She smoked from a cigarette holder and swore like a sailor. Most people thought she was vulgar, but I wanted to be like her when I grew up.

I love the word stripper. It's a fabulous word. There's a lot of snobbery about burlesque. You hear it all the time: 'I'm not a stripper, what I do is different.'

Even when I did regular stripping, I was dressed vintage-style. I wasn't ever this tanned bikini babe swinging around a pole.

My martini-glass act is the one I've done more than any other. I've been performing it since 1993. I have about 15 other shows, but that's the one that always gets booked.

I'm more attracted to glamour than natural beauty. The young Marilyn Monroe was a pretty girl in a sea of pretty girls. Then she had her hair bleached, fake eyelashes, and that's when she became extraordinary. It's that idea of what you're not born with, you can create.

I'm used to corsets now. A 22in, even a 16in, I know how to stand, walk, sit, stay composed.

I've never had any inhibitions about being nude onstage. I will think about what the steps are, how my costume comes off, but never the nudity. It's never even crossed my mind.

Men rarely say anything to me after a show. Maybe they're intimidated. It's usually the women who come up - a lot of them are inspired to bring elements of burlesque into their private lives.

People paint me out to be this person into exotic sex, which I am - I've said I'm into bondage and spanking. But I think a lot of people, if they were honest, would say, 'Yeah, that sounds fun.'

I like vanilla sex as much as the next girl. Sometimes when I date men, they feel they have to put on a show. I'm like: 'Stop trying so hard to impress me with your sexual perversions.'

People say, 'How can you be a feminist?' I would say, 'It's all about equal rights, isn't it?' And the second someone says you can't do what you love, do you have equal rights?

I've never been that girl out looking for a rich husband. I never wanted to have anyone say what I can or can't do. My soon-to-be-ex husband [rock star Marilyn Manson] asked me to quit my work so he could support me. I quickly realised that he wanted to change me. The things people like about you in the beginning end up being the things they don't like.

We were painted as this weird couple, because we had taxidermy in our home. But I've been to castles and there are all these hunting trophies and bear rugs.

We were so terribly in love. I never took him for someone who would exploit our divorce for the sake of records. I don't think people realise he used our marriage bed in that music video to have sex with that girl [Manson's new girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood]. And he wore his wedding ring. I just thought, 'Wow, this is kind of obsessive. I guess I still matter.'

I'd get married again. I'm not going to let one bad experience ruin it for the rest of my life.

I performed my show Liptease at the Cannes film festival. The room was full of big movie stars and producers. They'd never seen a girl take off all her clothes and ride a giant lipstick before. Sharon Stone came up to me afterwards to say how much she loved it.

I've had breast enlargement. It's so tiresome when people lie about their surgery.

Am I going to be frolicking about in my G-string in a champagne glass when I'm 60 years old? No. I'll be thinking about how to evolve accordingly.

 

[lemeray]

That was an interesting interview, thank you, her personality is interesting and she seems postive but it's sad how Marliyn has treated her.

 

[serenade]

Thank you, tigerrouge

 

[tigerrouge]

It must be very difficult when your relationship falls apart in the public eye. And then you see Evan all dressed up like some 'lolita Dita', and you can't help wondering, has he replaced Dita with a newer model, or is Evan simply playing the part to please Manson? Because women like Dita, they don't come along too often. A hard act to follow.

 

[susa31]

I hope I'm not reposting....

Defining Dita Von Teese

Written By Melissa Cantor
Photographed By Greg Sorensen

Dita Von Teese undresses for a living. As perhaps the most famous burlesque dancer today, the sway of her hips is an art form, the pursing of her lips a performance. She has graced the cover of Playboy, starred in fetish flicks and was briefly married to shock rocker Marilyn Manson.

She is the perfect role model.
In an industry—and a culture—where looks are everything and celebrity is often achieved through infamy, Von Teese has done what few women can: She’s shunned outside notions of beauty and defined her own aesthetic. “When I was a little girl, I wasn’t like, ‘I want to grow up to be a stripper,’ but I wanted to be a glamour girl. I wanted to be a ballerina, showgirl or model, and I didn’t expect anyone to turn me into that. I wanted to do it for myself. The women that I admired weren’t just naturally pretty. They were self-created beauties, and I wanted to make that for myself.”

A natural blonde, Von Teese says she can’t envision herself ever returning to her platinum locks. “That look is covered right now,” she says. “Between Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and Madonna in her Evita era, it’s being done well, and I’ve got quite a niche thing. I don’t think I’ll change my hair color until I’m an old lady and I’ve gone gray—which looks fantastic, by the way, with the same makeup and lipstick I like to wear now.”

Von Teese achieves her iconic blue-black hair color at home, by herself. She’s notorious for her reluctance to use makeup artists or stylists. “It can sometimes hurt my friends who are artists or hair people or stylists that I don’t rely on a whole bunch of people to put me together,” she says. “But I think sometimes people don’t understand that what I do isn’t about vanity or being a celebrity. I want to do it myself because I genuinely enjoy the look and style I’m creating.”

Both Von Teese’s look and career were born in a strip club called Captain Cream in El Toro, California, where she worked for seven years. “It was a regular, pole-dancing strip club, and I was a strip-a-holic. I was putting my money away, investing in mutual funds and thinking of the future, but I think there was a point where people thought I was sadly scarred because I would work so much,” she laughs.
During those seven years, Von Teese studied the history of burlesque, and learned that many famous pin-up girls from the past had been dancers as well. It inspired her to bring the look back. “There were just so many blonde women in bikinis around me, and I wanted to set myself apart,” she says.

During her stripteases, Von Teese donned opera gloves, stockings and long corsets, eventually whittling her natural waistline down to 22 inches and achieving the legendary, rib-crushing proportions of 16.5 inches while cinched down. “It created this whole mystique where people would just do anything to see me unlace it,” she says. “It’s not like I was hiding something. I just liked the idea of making people want to see my waist and my stomach. We see stomachs all the time, but once you cover it up, there’s this mystery and it’s exciting.”

These days, Von Teese’s shows operate on a larger scale. Attempting to revive a lost art form and calling her work New Burlesque, Von Teese’s performances have evolved into long, elaborate dances involving props and characters. Her feather fan dance is among her most famous, and she once performed at a benefit for the New York Academy of Art wearing $1 million in diamonds and nothing else. Currently, Von Teese is working on creating a large-scale showgirl revue, a project for which she has already secured financing. “It’s just a matter of figuring out where and when,” she confides.

Following the success of her bestselling Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/ Fetish and the Art of the Teese, she is already at work on her second book. “It’s about eccentric beauty and style, and I’m really excited about the message,” Von Teese says. “There’s so much emphasis on women in fashion and beauty magazines to follow the crowd and do the safer things, and I don’t think that’s right. Style should be more about celebrating individuality and choices, and not so much trends and rules.”


Von Teese is also on tour for M.A.C. Cosmetic’s VIVA GLAM fundraising campaign, which benefits the makeup company’s AIDS Fund. After the extensive travel the tour entails, Von Teese confesses all she wants is a “spa retreat where I can get massaged into a puddle.” As for the constant questions about whether she will set out to conquer Hollywood after becoming a fashion muse to designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, Von Teese dismisses the notion. “The first question people have for me is what I want to do next. They say I should be an actress, make a movie.” Von Teese shakes her head. “No. I want to be the world’s greatest stripper.”

detroit.sixdegreesmag.com

 

[Miss Dalloway]

tigerrouge wonderful interview,thanks for poting.I enjoyed it alot.And i agree the whole Manson/Wood spctacle is so distasteful,specially the afromentioned video.

I really like Dita and her attitude,i would LOVE to see her on the cover of Italian Vogue.

 

[nogoodforme]

thanks, tigerrouge and susa31, for the interviews! dita's style isn't really close to my own but i love her attitude and intelligence. she seems to have a lot of dignity, especially throughout this whole marilyn manson affair.

 

[orange01t]

photos by sheryl nields. first 3 were new to me, but figured i would post all...

 

[eternitygoddess]

Is there a color that DOESN'T look good on her?

 

[eternitygoddess]

“No. I want to be the world’s greatest stripper.”

Imagine saying that next time someone asks you what you want to be.

 

[tigerrouge]

Thanks susa31; Dita always has something interesting to say, I can never read enough about her. She's put a lot of thought into her image, instead of letting someone do all the work for her, which means she has a more insightful view on... personal identity, and the power of a damn good dress.

 

[ParadEyes]

The young Marilyn Monroe was a pretty girl in a sea of pretty girls. Then she had her hair bleached, fake eyelashes, and that's when she became extraordinary. It's that idea of what you're not born with, you can create.

.......

 

[nicovelvet]

Great interviews. It is the first time I read some of her comments about Manson (and Rachel). I had noticed in the video that he was still wearing his wedding band and I thought that, yes, as Dita says herself, she must matter to him still.

 

[nicovelvet]

...oh yes, the part about him (Manson) using their bed in the video is quite tasteless. I didn't know but still, I am not surprised. When I saw the video it was clear to me that it was a cheap shot he used aimed at his ex-wife.... Yes, as someone said in this forum, Dita must be an hard act to follow.

 

[serenade]

^ What video is this? I'm curious.