Tempest Rose has been a Bad Girl

Tempest Rose is about to kick Oxford out of its comfort zone with a great big, feathery, sequinned stiletto heel and into the 21st century.

The creation of former Oxford High School pupil Ariadne Blakey, right, Tempest Rose is now a proud member of the Kitten Club in London and wants to bring burlesque back to her home town.

“I was going to start something in London but when I researched burlesque in Oxford I realised there was nothing here,” the 26-year-old says, after a strenuous three-hour rehearsal in fishnets and a feather boa.

“Burlesque is a combination of singing, dancing, satire, circus, striptease and comedy.

“But it is also a vehicle for eroticism and sensuality.”

Burlesque is back in a big way, with cabaret clubs opening all over London.

“It’s ironic really,” Ariadne says, “because in the 1930s burlesque was huge, which was the last Depression, and now its coming back into fashion during this recession.”

So what’s the attraction? “The audience is predominantly women – I think they’re bored of in-yer-face aggressive sexuality.

“This is much more old-fashioned, sensuous and interactive. It’s erotic, but also intelligent, so it stimulates you mentally as well as being sexy.

“While it takes you on a journey through the many characters I play, there is always this sexual undercurrent. What I love most is that I get to sing, act and dance and it’s the one vehicle that allows you to do them all.

“Plus I get to use all the facets of my training, and all of my experience every night. So you get to have a night out watching something inspiring rather than going to a nightclub or bar. There’s nothing really like it.”

So who is Tempest Rose and where did she come from?

“She’s a caricature of all the things I‘d like to be,” Ariadne says.

“Tempest Rose gets to have frivolous, zany fun while I pay the bills,” she laughs.

“So the debutante and showgirl Miss Tempest Rose graduated from finishing school in 2007 and is most accomplished in the lady-like pastimes of singing, poetry, ballet and needlepoint.

“She is also highly accomplished in the not-so lady-like arts of soul-singing, tease, espionage, assassination, drinking, hustling and is well aware of what the butler saw. Tempest Rose may look like a lady, but she is not to be messed with!”

Ariadne, on the other hand, grew up in Headington, where her parents still live, before taking a place at The London Academy of Performing Arts, with a post graduate diploma in classical acting with musical theatre.

Since then she has worked in theatre, musical theatre, film, television, voice-overs and the West End. Does she ever get self-conscious as Tempest Rose?

“The first time I felt very much on show but even in a pair of nipple tassles it doesn’t bother me now,” Ariadne laughs.

“But I don’t go any further than French knickers, and as I’m also sponsored by a lingerie company I get to wear all this wonderful clothing and costumes.”

So what will Ariadne’s High School teachers think? “I hope they’ll be very proud and see that I’m promoting a positive female role model both physically and mentally and doing something for women, as well as it as being enterprising.

“But I would love to find out what they think,” she smiles before winking, tossing her boa over her shoulder and departing, with a swing of her hips.

Tempest Rose will be at Baby Simple in Cowley Road on March 19 and once a month thereafter. Tickets cost £8.

Dita Von Teese: My Teachers Thought I Was Mute

Dita Von Teese was "really, really shy" before she took up stripping.

The burlesque beauty and ex-wife of rocker Marilyn Manson says she used to be so quiet her teachers thought she was mute.

Dita explains, "I was really, really shy. Like painfully shy. People thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn't speak.

"I didn't like to speak in class at school. I was really shy and they were always sending me to these speech classes to try to figure out where my voice was but I just didn't want to talk.

"I'm still a little bit like that now."

Dita Von Teese: 'I Was a Teen Stripper'

Dita von Teese's talent for stripping has earnt her mega bucks - even in the early days.

Burlesque beauty Dita started peeling off her clothes for cash when she was just a teen.

She says, "I was working as a go-go dancer in nightclubs just out of high school. I was under age. I was only 18.

"Then I started stripping and I worked five times a week, sometimes six. In the early nineties I was easily making a thousand or $1,500 a night. I was making a lot of money."

Bourbon's Bustout Burlesque

Foxy Flambeaux's 'Absinthe Fairy' demonstrates what happens when a winsome sprite sips a little too long from the 'Green Goddess.'

The French Quarter was cooking Friday night, especially the crowded, cacophonous Bourbon Street. But when I entered The Royal Sonesta Hotel and its renovated Mystic room, I dropped down the rabbit hole and into the wonderland of my misspent youth.

I remember what a Bourbon Street nightclub show was like in its 1950s heyday, and this is it. "Bustout Burlesque, " the long-running, retro re-creation of producer Rick Delaup, has finally made it to the street where it belongs, after more than three years of playing various Quarter locales.

This is the real deal in flashy, splashy, nostalgic appeal: a sexy variety show with stylish authenticity. Beautiful girls putting the tease back into striptease, coming on saucy and coy and then giving way to abandon, as they peel off layers of sequined, lacy, fetishistic attire to the blare of a jazz band and pounding drums. As one of the Bourbon Street barkers of old would say, "Girls dancing out naughty deeds, dressed in nothing but skin and beads." "Bustout Burlesque" now has a corporate sponsor ("Secrets in Lace" lingerie), its bill a revolving one culled from eight dancers, each with a distinct premise for her strip.

Last week, I saw Foxy Flambeaux, now a stunning blonde, doing an "Absinthe Fairy" number, looking fetching in a shimmering green beaded outfit and a pair of wings, which she keeps on even after discarding almost everything else. The idea is, she's a fluttering sprite who imbibes too much of the "Green Goddess" and turns into a wild tassel-twirler.

Starla St. Roch came on wearing a biblical gown -- lo and behold! She stripped veils, to the insistent beat of "Temptation." The pert Roxie LaRouge, purposefully coiffed to resemble 1950s pinup girl Bettie Page, impersonates a French strumpet in red-hot sequins and stockings she peels off oh, so leisurely.

Perle Noire, The Black Pearl, swept through the room like a whirlwind. First, she's sensual and undulating. Then she comes back in Josephine Baker's famous "La Revue Negre" banana-skirt and feathered bracelets in a frenziedly provocative, humorous, revved-up routine that had the full house cheering. (She returns to the show Oct. 17 and 24.)

Singer Debbie Davis rates ovations without taking off a thing. She appears in a champagne-colored outfit that matches her curly blonde hair to sing "Oh, Johnny, Oh" and returns in a 1940s red, sweetheart neckline to knock the audience for a loop with her raucous rendition of "Stuff Like That There."

Dante, the comic-master of ceremonies, is a figure of fun with jokes that need rim-shots to put them across. As a magician, however, he is an artist. His silent routine to music, in which he makes eggs, lit cigarettes and you-name-it appear from the damnedest places, has evolved over the years to a very funny and astonishing 11 minutes of perfection.

Wild Cherry, once the "firecracker of Bourbon Street" in her (and my) youth, is now a red-hot comic mama with tried and true patter.

Bandleader Matt Bell is the virtuoso on guitar, with dynamic, wah-wah trumpet player Jim Thornton, wailing sax man Ricky Knight, Greg Schatz on bass and drummer Doc Richards, who beats those skins with a Gene Krupa-like intensity.

The Mystic looks great: a compact, classy showroom that seats fewer than 100, glittering with black-beaded chandeliers, mirrors and frosted glass.

I may be the show's best audience, because I am not only a silver-haired geezer with a knowing appreciation for what's onstage, but still that kid in the balcony at the old Sho-Bar or 500 Club, dazzled by women I'd seen come into the dressing room looking like anybody else, only to emerge onstage as kaleidoscopically glistening butterflies.

BUSTOUT BURLESQUE

What: "Secrets in Lace presents 'Bustout Burlesque' at The Mystic, " produced by Rick Delaup, choreographed by Dollie Rivas.

Where: The Mystic, Royal Sonesta Hotel, 300 Bourbon St.

When: Fridays, 8 and 10 p.m., through Oct. 24.

Tickets: $25 and $35.

Call: 504.586.0300. Visit www.bustoutburlesque.com

By David Cuthbert. Photos by Steven Forster / The Times-Picayune

Dita von Teese reveals Wonderbra lingerie collection

A leading light in the revival of burlesque, Dita Von Teese is celebrated for her hourglass curves and the retro style she wears to make the most of them.

Naturally for the model and muse, it's important to love every layer.

Lingerie has long loomed large in her life, and now the star has launched her own designs for underwear brand Wonderbra - fittingly, by perching on a swing shaped like a giant bra, in London's Covent Garden.

And she's thrilled that her designs will soon be making their way into other women's lingerie drawers.

"My first job was working in a lingerie store and I always thought some day I would love to have my own lingerie store or be a lingerie buyer, I never thought that I would be doing this."

Dita appeared wearing an elegant peach strapless gown, cinched in at the waist to show off her curves - the immaculate makeup and glamorous waving hair-do goes without saying.

Her vintage look is inspired by the golden age of 1940s cinema.

"I think I'm really sort of mostly influenced by the past but not just of one particular era I think a lot of the eras are kind of - I like the idea of them all being melding together and it just being about the spirit of old Hollywood"

Like her former husband Marilyn Manson, Dita loves a show stopping image.

The star kicks against the trend for natural beauty - creating a memorable look is far more fun, she says.

"There's just so much emphasis put on being natural and real and of the moment and fashionable I kind of disagree with all those things, I love artifice I love man made beauty, I like the idea of being whoever you want to be and not just saying this is what I've got, this is what I've going to live with"

And she bats away any suggestion that beauty is pain when it comes to shaping her figure with corsets. She bought her first one when she was at school and has been a fan of them ever since.

"A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on oh, me wearing corsets and the pain and suffering but I think it's a little like wearing a high heeled shoe, it's not as pleasant as wearing a - going barefoot of course, but there's something about it that we love, that manipulation and the sort of discipline and the way that everything changes about your body shape and that's what I love about things like corsets and high heeled shoes."

Making a statement with your style is what it's all about for Dita. Her fashion icons are all brave with their wardrobe choices.

"I definitely look to people that have an unfaltering sense of themselves, I love seeing what Tilda Swinton is wearing for instance, I think she has a really distinctive, interesting look and doesn't play it safe."

"Madonna throughout her history has done some outrageous things," she continues, "and I know that she's - you can tell that when she puts together a look or a style she knows about it, it's not just a team of people doing it."

Your look doesn't have to be always polished and sleek to get Dita's vote, just strong.

"Amy Winehouse who has a very distinctive style with regard to her make up and her hair and even though it gets a little messy sometimes, it's still there and it doesn't change."

And the first step towards top to toe perfection?
"You know, you should definitely have good lingerie, you should respect yourself by throwing out all the things that have holes and blown out elastic or stains or whatever, just get rid of it and buy something new. But fortunately you don't have to spend a lot of money to have glamor and function in your lingerie drawer anymore," insists Dita, "and I think the other thing is good shoes."

Behind the scenes with Dita Von Tease

Dita Von Teese - Naked Ambition

It’s not just the way she twirls her nipple tassels that has made Dita Von Teese the world’s most celebrated stripper. Burlesque’s steeliest entrepreneur talks fetish, Forties films and frilly knickers.

In a darling drawing room in a Paris atelier up a discreet Montmartre alleyway, the fancy-pants stripper is showing me her new knickers and bras. There is ornate stitching and clever cantilevering; a removable rose affixed between the cups; showgirl-style nipple tassels. Ten pieces in all, in colours including butterscotch gold and blue-grey. They’re manufactured by Wonderbra and have been designed by Dita Von Teese. She’s the burlesque performer hitherto most famous for taking her clothes off in elaborate routines, and for being married – briefly – to Goth-rocker Marilyn Manson. Her own vital stats: height 5ft 6in, bust 32C, waist 23in (or 16in when strapped into the corsets she wore five days a week, every week, during her ten years working in a Los Angeles strip club), fortune considerable.

She’s come a long way since her strip-club days. After 2006’s book, Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese – a coffee-table guide to burlesque and fetish – this autumn brings the latest extension of Dita’s world: the Europe-wide launch of her Wonderbra range.

Dita has flown in from her home in Los Angeles to launch the undies in Paris, which feels like a very Dita city. She’s very proud of her creations, she says, as she sits bolt upright and poised in a chair. Her complexion is porcelain-creamy, her naturally blonde hair dyed raven-black and sculpted into a perfect chignon, her surgically enhanced cleavage plunging. Her heels are by Louboutin (“of course”) and her dress by Dior. Even her manners are old-school rarefied. Dita the diva is about detail. Yes, she titters with an arch of spindly eyebrow, she even colours her hair downstairs. Would she ever revert to her natural state? “I think there are enough retro-styled blonde modern women,” comes the reply, “like Gwen Stefani or Christina Aguilera.”

Of course, there are plenty of sexy women who are willing to get their kit off in front of crowds or cameras (and sure, Dita’s done Playboy). But none has parlayed her disrobing into lucrative partnerships with spirit label Cointreau, cosmetics line MAC, various fashion designers (Jean Paul Gaultier supplied Dita’s wedding dress) and now Wonderbra. “All of the brand associations that I’ve ever had have been strong and really well thought out. And things that I’ve waited for.”

How has Dita Von Teese accomplished all this? Laser-brained dedication to her craft, that’s how. You might say that craft is just stripping for middle-class folk, but the young girl who dreamt of being a ballerina is now a 35-year-old who understands the art of performance, and drama, and music. “I believe one of the secrets of my success is getting nearly nude and wet in every show.” So Dita never takes off all her clobber. Always leave them wanting more.

Her most famous routine involves stripping inside a giant cocktail glass, which led to the Cointreau partnership. “I always knew that I should have a collaboration with a spirit brand, too. And I’d been approached by lots of them. It was never sophisticated enough. And finally Cointreau came along and they had really great ideas and they wanted me to build this great show, and make a signature cocktail.” She beams peachily. “And it was perfect.”

Dita Von Teese is a body and a look and a brand. She built it from scratch, with an eye to the future. Even in her first proper job, as a dancer in an LA strip club, she was assiduously investing $1,000 per month in mutual funds. “And I still have all that money.” Even then, 15 years ago, Dita could earn $6,000 for two minutes’ performance, so she still had enough money left to buy a Thirties Chrysler.

Since then, she’s worked hard to build – and protect – the brand. She’s a steely-eyed entrepreneur who discovered a niche in the market, and worked hard to fill it with her own shapely curves. “At the time the whole fetish world was about shock – tattooed, pierced, hardcore, serious bitches with whips. I set out to be the best darn retro-fetish model since Bettie Page.”

The collaboration with Wonderbra is a natural extension of all this. Dita Von Teese has been obsessed with lingerie, especially the vintage kind, since landing a job in an Orange County underwear shop named Lady Ruby’s when she was 15. She’s been collecting undergarments for two decades, and is something of an expert on different eras’ different shapes. Her Wonderbra collection is “designed to actively encourage women of all ages to harness their inner glamour and beauty”. With regards to the bra with the magnetic clasp, it’s perhaps designed to let sausage-fingered men do some easy unharnessing. Not that Dita Von Teese is thinking about men. She’s all about women. For a stripper, this is interesting.

“I’m really fortunate that a lot of my fans are women who are taking the inspiration of burlesque and pin-up and getting in touch with their inner bombshell,” she says. “That’s something I did long before I was a performer. I just enjoyed it in my real life. I like the idea of being a natural seductress, so it doesn’t seem contrived. In the same way that I think a great burlesque, a great striptease, is always about when it looks natural and easy and effortless. I feel the same about one-on-one seduction.”

Dita Von Teese was born Heather Renée Sweet in small-town Michigan, the middle of three daughters. Her mum was a manicurist, her dad worked for a company making graphite. “I was a very quiet, painfully shy person. They used to try to send me to speech classes ’cause I was afraid of speaking. Terrified if I was called on in class. All I did was take ballet class. And play dress-up.” She’s always loved clothes, fashion, as an agent of transformation. “The way that they can turn you into whoever you want to be.” To this day she feels insecure if she hasn’t dressed up, or hasn’t applied her warpaint.

The family moved to California with Dad’s job when Heather was 13. Shortly afterwards, her parents divorced. Aside from ballet, young Heather had a passion for old films, which she’d watch with her mother. She’s previously said that, “Dita Von Teese is someone I always dreamt of being when I was little.” Explaining this now, she says that this dream revolved around these silver-screen icons.

“When I watched an old movie and I saw those images on the screen, it just changed me. I wanted to be surrounded by all that beauty. I looked at these Forties women in Technicolor with the red lips and the rosy cheeks and high heels and these incredible shapes – it was really mysterious and fabulous. And I noticed, they’re all painted – it wasn’t the real thing. I realised that I could make that. I loved this artificial, contrived beauty. And I never felt very special or interesting,” she admits, acknowledging that being the middle sibling, and the plainest of the Sweet girls, left its mark. “So I thought I’d turn myself into what those Hollywood studios turned those women into.”

Soon, in her mid-teens, she was working in Lady Ruby’s. She threw herself into this world, learning about the history of lingerie and how to advise and fit the shop’s clientele, ladies who ranged in age from their twenties to their fifties. “I was an expert,” she says. “I think people were sorta stunned. But I wanted to be the best at everything I did. So I was the best lingerie sales girl there ever was.”

While still in her teens Dita became a star of the strip-club and fetish scenes in LA. She assumed her nom de strip and translated her love of scant costume into a kind of performance art. Of her early DVD films – Tickle Part 2, Bound in Stockings, Naked and Helpless – she says, “I don’t regret any of those. There’s nothing hidden. It’s all on my website – I sell the stuff. It’s part of who I am. It’s how I got here.” She also has no problems discussing her plastic surgery – both the breasts and beauty spot are fake. As she once said, “Everything I have is manufactured.”

“Pretty much,” she concedes. “I haven’t had any other plastic surgery, or any Botox. But I will always admit to everything I’ve done. Whatever I have, if someone else wants it, they should be able to paint it on, too. I’m not trying to pretend that I’m practically perfect in every way,” she says in a singsong voice, “and I’m naturally this way and oh no, I never have to work out and I can eat whatever I want… This drives me insane when I hear this! And I’m sure it drives other women insane too. I’m telling the truth: I work out really hard, I eat what I want to eat to a degree without dieting, and…” A Stepford smile. “I’m manufactured, and proud of it. I’m proud of what I created – ’cause I feel like I’m my own canvas, my own art piece.”

Less up for discussion is her former husband. She and Marilyn Manson (real name Brian Warner), a hardcore ghoul with an interest in death and Nazis, hooked up after he cast her in his video for his 2000 single, The Fight Song. They split in late 2006 after a year of marriage. Seemingly he cheated on Dita, had an “inappropriate relationship” going on and wouldn’t damp down his party lifestyle; soon after they split he was revealed to be dating (then a teenager) actress Evan Rachel Wood. Another source of tension was his suggestion that Dita give up her work. I suggest to her that her former husband really, truly didn’t understand her. Dita’s work, after all, is Dita, and vice versa.

“It’s funny, I’ve gone through the past year and a half not even thinking about it, then somebody brings it up again…” She sighs ever so slightly. “But I’ll tell you: my entire adult life I’ve had a very strong sense of my own style. And I’ve been performing burlesque and creating pin-up photos since I was 18 years old. And of course I’ve had my share of different kinds of men that felt different ways about it.

“And you know, some of them were casualties and they didn’t last. But I always knew it was important to follow my heart no matter what. And certainly there have been times in my life where I’ve been asked to quit what I do and settle down and have a baby… And I just thought, it’s not right to ask someone to stop following their dream.”

But you said a couple of years ago that you didn’t want to have children. Because being pregnant would mess with your look?

“No. At the time that I said that, I was married to someone that could not be a proper father. I don’t know what is next for me. I know that my biological clock is not ticking. I’m more interested in the romantic idea of finding a real partner who makes me want to have children with him.” This, she says, has not happened yet, by which I think she means she’s single right now (or, having learnt some bitter lessons in the Manson flame-out, she’s being purposefully coy).

Did your marriage and the manner of its ending damage your brand?

“I don’t know,” she says in a quiet voice. “I never thought about it.”

“NO MORE MANSON QUESTIONS!” shouts someone. Dita and I both jump. It’s her manager, Melissa Dishell. Unbeknown to me she’s been sitting behind a curtain, earwigging. Dita laughs, then murmurs, “I’m just trying to say in a polite way… Let him go and get his own press!” she laughs again.

We move on, and discuss her plans for films. In advance of appearing in the lead role in a biopic of Mata Hari, she’s taking lessons from the acting coach who helped Charlize Theron and Halle Berry. It’s to be directed by Martha Fiennes (sister of Ralph and Joseph). Unlike the 1931 Greta Garbo version of the life of the doomed dancer-turned-spy, they’ll show the death-by-firing-squad scene.

“I don’t have this desire to be a great actress in the sense that that’s my calling. I enjoy being a showgirl. But Mata Hari is a story that I’m really interested in. It has a lot of similarities to my own career and life. And I like the idea that my idols, like [legendary burlesque dancer] Gypsy Rose Lee, made films, but they always showed her doing what she did best in the films.”

And has Dita planned out at what age it becomes unseemly for her to be taking her clothes off in public?

“I don’t know. I remember being 20 and thinking there’s no way I’ll be feather-dancing when I’m 35! And I can say with conviction that I’m in better shape now than I was then. I don’t wanna predict for myself or make rules for myself about that. I think I’ve been really good at evolving and making the right choices. And I’m pretty sure people don’t look at me and say, ‘Ooh gosh, should she really be doing that any more?’ I don’t think that’s happening.”

It’s time to psychologically sum up our conversation. I put it to you, Ms Von Teese, that you’re an insecure, plain Midwestern girl who vowed to emerge from the shadows of her sisters, and who, hiding behind all that fashion and cosmetic armour, has a fear of intimacy but the brain of an accountant…

Dita giggles. “A fear of intimacy? No, you can leave that part out. But I’m a good accountant. Although I do spend a lot of money on shoes and feathers and rhinestones. What is it they say? The girl with a head for business and a body for sin? Is that me? I think so.”
By Craig McLean.

Dita Von Teese - The Big Tease

Inspired by the stars of yesteryear Dita Von Teese single-handedly reinvented the art of burlesque. She reveals her style secrets to Alison Kerr
In a sea of bland, tanned blonde celebrities, one woman stands out. International burlesque queen Dita Von Teese is a poster girl for old-fashioned glamour. She may not be a movie star but her look is pure Hollywood circa 1947. With her carefully coiffed, raven hair, creamy skin and ruby lips, she is all the great screen sirens of the Golden Age rolled into one petite package. Rita Hayworth? Check. Elizabeth Taylor? Check. Joan Crawford? Check. Jane Russell. Er, double check?

In just a few years, Von Teese has gone from being famous by association with her ex-husband, freakish goth rocker Marilyn Manson - about whom she politely declines to talk - to being universally known by her first name, which is often used as a form of shorthand to refer to her distinctive look. Her signature style, which fuses fashions from the 1930s, "40s and "50s, has made her an icon and, in addition to being hailed as a patron saint of vintage chic, she has become a fixture on the fashion circuit, with designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier throwing open the doors to their archives and inviting her to borrow whatever she likes.

Meanwhile, her one-woman revival of the art of striptease - performed in spectacularly lavish shows of which MGM would have been proud - has spawned a surge of interest in burlesque. Her fans include the cr'me de la cr'me of the pop and fashion worlds: the Beckhams, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs, Roland Mouret, Jade Jagger, George Michael and Elton John have all enjoyed Von Teese"s stylish retro routines, which are more balletic than bump-and-grind, and which have drawn inspiration from the work of such diverse figures as Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkeley and Art Deco designer Erte.

Von Teese has injected fantasy, femininity and flirtatious fun into stripping, whether she"s disrobing atop a glittery pink carousel horse, bathing in a giant martini glass or patting her barely clad bod with an oversized powder puff. With her elegantly choreographed moves and her luxurious costumes and sets, she"s done her damnedest to banish the association with unimaginative pole dancing routines and tawdry clubs. Indeed, so far is the Von Teese image removed from the world of neon thongs that the 35-year-old was signed up by Wonderbra to design a range of typically glamorous, retro-inspired lingerie.When we meet, in a suitably sumptuous London hotel suite, it"s immediately apparent that, although she may be a sex symbol, Von Teese isn"t in the least bit intimidating or overpowering. Close-up, you can almost glimpse a mousy, slightly buck-toothed blonde lurking behind the porcelain, doll-like face - which recalls both Snow White and her wicked stepmother.

Although she refers to her appearance as cartoon-like onstage, her physique does resemble Jessica Rabbit"s, thanks to her Vargas girl curves and teeny waist (16 inches in her tightest corset) Von Teese doesn"t have the freakish, exaggerated, cartoon qualities that many of today"s glamour girls have. Not for her hair extensions, ludicrous cleavage or a tango tan. Dressed in a hot pink, leopard print silk dress (slightly unbuttoned to reveal the teeniest hint of a black bra) by Moschino and black patent peep-toes, Von Teese exudes sex appeal, but in a wholly unthreatening, tasteful and ladylike way.

"I like the double standard," the softly spoken star says, coyly. "I"ve always loved the idea of not being what people expect me to be. I"m not an exhibitionist that"s not why I do what I do. Day-to-day, I"m actually quite shy. I like my hemline below the knee. I would never bare my belly. I"m a little conscious about how much cleavage I"m showing. I feel like I don"t really need to show my body, and I like the mystery about not showing it I prefer the idea of someone wondering what"s underneath the dress."

Von Teese"s eyes light up as she plunges into girl talk - about clothes, make-up, hairstyles, men and movie stars. She exudes excitement as she relates how she became tongue-tied when she met Elizabeth Taylor a few years ago, and how her jaw dropped when Lauren Bacall swung by her table at a Manhattan restaurant to say hello to shoe designer Christian Louboutin. "She was walking towards us and Karl Lagerfeld bumped into her. She shot him a look that would kill, and said: 'Excuse you!" and then turned to our table to talk to Christian. She"s terrifying!"

There"s an openness about Von Teese which recalls the vulnerable aspect of Marilyn Monroe"s personality - and which makes a female star as appealing to her own sex as she is to men. Indeed, she is thrilled by the fact that the majority of her fanbase is female. "It"s mostly women who are having fun with glamour instead of trying to fit into the mainstream version of sexy," she says. "If you look at what"s considered sexy most of the time, it"s natural - no make-up, a really healthy-looking tan, running along the beach in a bikini - that"s what we"re fed as sexy. But that"s not an easy image for a lot of us to attain. I certainly couldn"t fit into that image. So I"m offering an alternative. I wanted to get in touch with what I thought was sexy - which is the opposite of the blonde bikini babe."

Von Teese prides herself on her "artificial glamour", which she believes is more easily achievable than the natural beauty that women are encouraged to aspire to. "I"m a big fan of movies of the 1930s, "40s and "50s and it was the look of the stars of those eras that appealed to me: false eyelashes, red lipstick, lots of blush, blue eyeshadow. Those stars had a commitment to glamour. It appealed to me not just because it was beautiful to look at, but because I thought: 'I can make that." I don"t think I can look like Cindy Crawford or Gisele but I can certainly paint my way to look like the stars of the past - and I thought I could be more interesting looking like that than I ordinarily was."

Was she born in the wrong era, then? "No," she says categorically. "I like having my cellphone. I like the internet. I like being different. I always wonder: "If this was 1945, would I be dressing in turn-of-the-century clothing - because I might still want to be different from everyone else?" Plus, being born when I was born, I have my pick of the fashions from the past."

THE FASCINATION WITH MOVIE STAR glamour began when Von Teese was a child. Back then, she was a natural blonde named Heather Sweet (she took her stage name from the German film actress of the 1930s, Dita Parlo), living first in Michigan then, from the age of 12, in California"s Orange County. Watching old movies on TV with her mother, she became obsessed with some of the musicals made during the Second World War, especially Cover Girl, with Rita Hayworth ("all these tilted miniature hats that sit on one side, and the suits with brooches, and the gloves," she gasps), and those with bubbly pin-up Betty Grable, who, despite her peroxide blonde hair, has proved to be Von Teese"s ultimate style icon.

Relishing the chance to talk about her heroine, Von Teese enthuses: "One of my favourite, favourite movies is a Betty Grable one called The Dolly Sisters. To me, it"s just the best hair and make-up of the 1940s. I love all of her films but those Technicolor movies where she"s a showgirl are the ones which inspire me most, especially in terms of hair styles. People say: 'Oh, I love the old black and white movies," but it"s Technicolor, glorious Technicolor, that really gets me. Nothing compares to the beauty of Technicolor - that"s what I always want to look like, and these movies have really influenced my shows."

Betty Grable is not often cited as a style icon, and, indeed, her name isn"t even very well remembered these days - which is pretty shocking, given that she was the most popular star of the war years. Perhaps now her time will come - at least, it will if Von Teese has anything to do with it. Clearly the 21st-century burlesque queen identifies with the 1940s pin-up girl, and not just in terms of appearance.

Von Teese says: "Betty was a real girl"s girl. She had a reputation for being fun and great to work with. She never wanted to be a serious actress - she just wanted to be Betty Grable and she was totally happy in those showgirl roles. She was made to do serious roles a few times, and she said: 'I don"t want to do that - I want to sing and dance and do what I do best." She knew that about herself, and I love that.

"I think that there are only a few people in the world who are that way about their career now. Pamela Anderson, for example, is great. She doesn"t take herself too seriously.

"I like when people know who they are, know their limitations and what they want to do. It"s the same thing for me. I want to be a burlesque star. I don"t want to be a singer. I don"t want to be an actress. I want to be known as a great burlesque star, a great stripper, and that"s what matters to me the most. I want to be known for what I"m really good at, not something that I"m just OK at."

The fascination with Grable was underpinned by another fixation. "All these scenes of showgirls backstage getting dressed, tightening their corsets . . . I became obsessed with lingerie and how it was a secret code of women, a sort of ritual - I never thought about it as something to seduce men. I was obsessed with the idea of 'when do I become a woman and get to wear this stuff?"

Appropriately, given her new role as designer and model for Wonderbra, Von Teese began her working life in a lingerie store, while she was still at high school. "I was enthralled by lingerie and immersed myself in it. I wanted to learn about the history of lingerie, the way the shapes changed, and what women wore in different eras." She bought her first garterbelt at the age of 15, and since then, tights haven"t had a look-in.

After she left school, Von Teese, who was by now dressing in a retro style - right down to the undies - was studying fashion design and the history of fashion at a local college by day, and working as a go-go dancer by night. Her career as a pin-up began when she decided that she"d like to be photographed wearing some of her vintage lingerie - and recreate the classic pictures of such fetish stars as Betty Page.

Von Teese was fortunate to be going out with a computer nerd at the time: "He told me about this new thing called the internet, and he set up a website for me - this was one of the first adult pin-up websites and certainly the first-ever retro one. At that time, you could only have one page. People would order photos and send us a cheque."

College and a potential career in costume design went by the wayside as Von Teese became focused on "bringing back the glamour to the fetish world". That led to stripping, and a fascination with burlesque which, with characteristic zeal, Von Teese has studied in great detail - reading every book on the subject, watching every documentary, even tracking down old burlesque dancers and interviewing them about their careers, finally producing a book on the subject.

She may be genuinely coy, but Von Teese clearly has an inner confidence which, along with her savvy business sense, has served her well. She was barely out of her teens when she launched her own, unique, take on burlesque. "Fetish magazines were really hardcore," she explains, "but I thought: 'I"m going to make it soft and pretty and elegant." Then, when I went to a strip club and I saw blonde girls swinging around poles in bikinis, I thought: 'There"s a goldmine for me because I"m different and I have something to offer that nobody else here has." I"ve always thought like that.

"Somebody else might have thought: 'I don"t fit in here, how can I fit into this?" I"ve always seen the opportunity. I still can"t understand why people don"t get that; that what makes you different is what makes you good. Don"t try to be like everyone else."

• The limited edition collection Wonderbra by Dita Von Teese goes on sale on Tuesday.

Dita Von Teese has 'ugly days' too

Dita Von Teese says even she has "unattractive" days.

The burlesque performer - who recently unveiled her underwear line with lingerie company Wonderbra - admits she often finds herself doubting her own beauty so much, she refuses to get up.

She said: "Like any woman, I have days where I look in the mirror and think, 'How can anyone find me attractive?' Some days there's nothing for it but to go back to bed, but mostly I try to put a face on and turn the day around. I try to remember we all have those moments - even people you admire."

Dita also revealed she hates it when she is targeted by anti-feminist groups who accuse her of being a sex object.

She added: "I've been called anti-feminist before and it makes me really mad. I don't do my job for men, I do it because I love the makeup, the costumes and the history of showgirls. How can someone have a problem with me when they will pay to see a film where an actress shows a nipple?"

6th Annual New York Burlesque Festival

Thursday, Sept 18 - 10:30pm:
"This is Burlesque" teaser party
Corio }
337 West Broadway at Grand St. NYC

Friday, Sept 19 - 8pm: Premiere Party
The Bell House } click here for tickets
149 7th Street (between 2nd & 3rd), Brooklyn

Saturday, Sept. 20 - 7pm:
The Saturday Spectacular
Le Poisson de Rouge } tix: lepoissonrouge.com
158 Bleecker Street, NYC

Sunday, Sept. 21: The Early Bird Dinner
& Golden Pastie Awards
SOB's } tix: sobs.com
204 Varick Street, NYC

Caburlesque on Britains got Talent

Thank the Lord for Escala and Nemesis or tonight’s Britain’s Got Talent could have been the most depressing hour and a half of TV that I have ever watched.

To be honest I’m now looking forward to tomorrow night’s final because I’m getting a bit fed up of being the bad guy and slagging everyone off, but here we go, for one last time.

Caburlesque were good, but for me they were not burlesque. Dancing in your underwear and taking off a skirt is not Burlesque, so although they danced perfectly well, it just wasn’t enough of an act for me.

Madonna Decena was an OK cabaret singer, but why on earth did they have to put a picture of her two kids up while she was singing. After insisting she wasn’t begging or just a sob story, this cheap trick did just the opposite. It shouldn’t be about who has the most heart-wrenching story, it should be about who is the most talented and she isn’t.

I don’t know why Anya Sparks bothered to turn up. The reason she was rubbish was nothing to do with her size - she could have been a size zero and she would still look like a drunk aunt getting over excited on a hen night.

Diva Las Vegas just weren’t different enough, while Per Diem were just painful to watch. It was like Journey South on a bad day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone leg it of stage as quickly as they did at the end. I felt sorry for them, but they were out of tune.

Meanwhile, Craig Harper was so holiday camp it hurt. I thought all acts like him had disappeared in the late 80s, but sadly not. I’m sure there is an audience for him out there somewhere, but I hated the fact he begged quite so much like he was the only person who deserved it. Of course Amanda Holden liked him – she was married to Les Dennis for crying out loud!

However, both Escala and Nemesis were genuinely talented and deserve to be in the final. At the moment I think it's too tough to call, which makes a nice change for reality TV.