"I'm the one who has been a fan of all these designers and photographers forever," she says, adding how she would tear pages out of magazines, "trying to get the look for $50 when I didn't have any money." But the real kicker, she adds, is "being called a fashion icon when what I do for a living is take my clothes off! Of course, the clothes and the costumes are such a major part of what I do. People wouldn't come to see me if all I wore was a bikini and G-string. They could go anywhere to see much hotter girls take their clothes off. But with me, they're coming to see the spectacle."
That spectacle now famously includes a human-size martini glass, complete with a giant sponge resembling a green olive to squeeze water onto Von Teese's milky breasts. There are the blindingly sparkling props, covered in thousands of Swarovski crystals: the carousel horse featured in London last February, or the claw-foot tub with working shower head that most recently appeared at the Crazy Horse (despite its weight, the tub has racked up quite a lot of miles; I first witnessed the tub act at a 2001 burlesque fest in New Orleans). And there's an enormous, glittering crescent moon that slowly descends with Von Teese elegantly perched upon it before she leaps onto the stage.
At Art Basel Miami Beach in early December, the petite Von Teese will ride a mammoth tube of lipstick, à la mechanical bull, in a new act designed to promote Viva Glam VI, which will travel globally in the coming year. She's a born crusader for the campaign, concedes M.A.C creative director James Gager, and not just for her "strong belief in the transformative powers of makeup, of lipstick. Dita's a sex symbol who believes in practicing safe sex, which is essential in this world with the spread of AIDS. She's very vocal about safe sex."
Louboutin custom-made boots for the act, and Rodriguez adapted a favorite look from his fall collection for Von Teese's turn on the red carpet at the arts fair. But the showtime finery materializes, as always, from the gifted hands of Catherine D'Lish, who is never far from her needle, thread and paillettes.
"We're on a roll now, so the sets and costumes have definitely become more expensive. Each one has to top the last," says D'Lish. Pieced together of the best laces, crystals and netting and cut and draped to withstand intensely physical performances, each costume can run into the hundreds of hours to create, and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. D'Lish has intimate knowledge of what's involved, being a celebrated performer in her own right. D'Lish and Von Teese, both equally committed to the legacy of burlesque, finally met eight years ago and over endless bubbly charted out their future. At first, that included duet performances that straddled burlesque and X-rated content. (Imagine my squeamishness when I took my mother to one of their acts at a burlesque fest five years ago and it spiraled into the two of them pleasuring themselves onstage.) Von Teese has since tamed her act and scaled back her involvement in the fetish arena. That and her mainstream ascent have raised the ire of some of her original base, she acknowledges. "But where else do you go? I was on the cover of all the magazines. I did the videos. Going to fetish parties started feeling like work. I needed more of a challenge. Frankly, with the fetish industry, there is no industry. No money. A girl's gotta make a living. It's not cheap to be me." But it's not as if Von Teese has abandoned her roots: "I still wear my corsets cinched to sixteen inches. I still wear the highest heels. I still offer fetish images on my site. I kept the elements about that culture I like."
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