Show Girl

Dita Von Teese is exactly where she wants to be. Cozily burrowed in her suite at the Hotel Lutetia, the first Art Deco hotel erected in Paris nearly a century ago -- and boasting such transitory residents as Picasso, Andre Gide and Josephine Baker -- this newest star to the city's burlesque scene is just an hour away from showtime. It's the fourth of her five at the Crazy Horse, the cabaret renowned for its dancers performing stark nude. Von Teese's limited run there in late October brought out, literally, all of fashionable Paris: Jean Paul Gaultier, YSL's Stefano Pilati, Christian Louboutin, Dior Joaillerie artistic director Victoire de Castellane and milliner Stephen Jones. All of them are self-admitted groupies of the mightiest marquee name of the burlesque new wave. Yet they are hardly reason for making Von Teese's appearance historic. This is the first time since the doors opened in 1951 that the Crazy Horse has showcased an outsider, a guest star.

"It's one of those dreams I never imagined possible, because I knew its history," says Von Teese. "As a teenager I had an article clipping from Playboy on the place. When I first came to Paris in 1991, along with the Louvre and Versailles, the Crazy Horse topped my list of places I needed to see. I was so enthralled by the extremely high standards of the club and the beautiful dancers. I make a point to see shows in every city I visit, and there's nothing like the Crazy Horse to carry on the tradition of the glorified glamour girl."

Touche. Right now few carry that torch as well as Von Teese herself. From her perfectly coiffed raven hair to her seamed-stockinged toes, Dita Von Teese is the glorious glamour goddess seducing the world. She's the toast of the fashion set from Manhattan to Milan -- on the catwalks, in front rows and now as one of M.A.C's ambassadors in the Viva Glam VI fundraising campaign. A supersize version (complete with extras) of her recent hot-selling book Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese is slated for release this spring, while a second book is in the works. And a nonstop schedule of appearances and performances worldwide isn't lessening the sizzle between her and new husband Marilyn Manson as they reach their first wedding anniversary. This has been a heady year, and it's only the start.

"They all go crazy for Dita -- suits, photographers, the designers, the kids and the celebrities," says Robert Duffy, longtime business partner of Marc Jacobs. Both he and Jacobs are Von Teese devotees, having enlisted her on more than one occasion. "They go crazy for her. I don't know if they even know what she does exactly, if they've ever seen her perform. But they just want to hug her. It's not just that perfect body, either. It's something that comes from within. She's genuinely kind."

Von Teese didn't pause when Duffy asked her to pose naked this fall for a fundraising T-shirt benefiting the New York University School of Medicine's Interdisciplinary Melanoma Cooperative Group. "Graphically, Dita's image was gorgeous -- and it required no retouching at all," insists Duffy, who also recruited Julianne Moore, Selma Blair and other celebs to pose au naturel for the drive. "We had all these movie stars and supermodels, and Dita's sold the best all around the world."

That's because Von Teese hasn't just become the leading light of modern-day burlesque. Even in an era when the "icon" label is bandied about as frequently as, well, "diva," Von Teese truly is a paragon of style. You won't catch her in a velour tracksuit, let alone jeans, at the corner supermarket. Her lips and nails are always the deepest shade of red. Look at the stores this season, and it's evident she has sparked the return to hourglass silhouettes, opera-length gloves and dress hats. Even her lack of contemporary diva-like antics puts her in another league. "You just have to look at her," says admirer and friend Louboutin. "She is a true modern aristocrat -- a mixture between the wild rock 'n' roll person and one of perfect manners, elegance and a complete lack of arrogance."

Stephen Jones, who became instant best pals with Von Teese when she came around to his London salon five years ago, agrees. "She really believes in fashion, in appearance -- as opposed to someone just buying this season's fashions. The dressing up and being groomed and looking chic, it's very serious. But at the same time, you can tell she's enjoying it. She's lighthearted about it. People respond to that. Her impact is undeniable."

Her image is splattered across the inspiration walls of many a designer, among them Narciso Rodriguez, who pushed the admiration a step further. "We tried to match her skin color to a fabric!" he explains. "To be famous today, you don't have to sing or dance or do much of anything. There's a tendency to be bamboozled by persona. But with Dita it's another matter. Here's this very unique, very refined lady who has this sexy, playfully naughty side. You can talk to her about anything because she's interested in so many things. Then you find out she's so real, so straightforward -- you want to get to know her more."

For Von Teese, the compliments, along with the stacks of international press and party invitations, continue to leave her gobsmacked. The world may be at her Louboutin-clad feet, but she is ever the humble girl who grew up in small-town Michigan before moving to Orange County at age 12. We met some six years later, when she was still going by her birth name, Heather Sweet, and transitioning from go-go dancing at strip and disco clubs into a fetish-world star channeling a flesh-and-blood Vargas vixen. She already had a panting fan club when I first saw her out of our Huntington Beach, California, scene and headlining at a Las Vegas fetish event in 1995, parting a crowd of over a thousand like it was the Red Sea and then sending them into delirium when she took to the stage in little more than pink satin toe shoes and two enormous pink feather fans.

"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, a 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."

Besides, there's too much fun to be had. "I could become a Crazy Horse girl and spend the rest of my days here," she says dreamily. "I love being here. I've even showered with them all. They have a big communal shower with twelve heads. No men allowed. My first time backstage, I said to the manager, "Do they all shower at the same time? I'm so getting in on that action.' It's the highlight getting in there at the end of the night with all the girls. I feel like I'm living a movie."

She loves Paris. Despite the traffic, she zigzagged all afternoon on errands, picking up her favorite tea at Mariage Freres and violet room spray at Laduree. But Von Teese is eager to get home to Los Angeles. It's been five weeks since she's seen her husband, the longest the two have been apart during their five years together. "He's been working on his record there, so it hasn't been possible to meet," she laments.

Standing invitations to return to Paris, London and other European cities mean Von Teese -- and burlesque -- are just firing up. "I'm glad there is a revival. But it makes me sad so many performers haven't really taken the time to learn the history. But I get angry at how these so-called experts insist it wasn't about nudity, that it was just about the art of the tease and the parody. They don't want to admit that burlesque dancers were the strippers of their day. It's like some kind of defense to make themselves feel smarter or better for embracing it. But it was about stripping. They were really great to look at and they were talented. These women were great strippers."

Another euphemistic description also makes her cringe, even if it is well-meaning. "I hate when what I do is called 'performance art.' I just want people to enjoy the nine minutes I'm up there onstage. My husband's keyboardist, M. W. Gacy, said it best. We were watching a burlesque variety show, really rough around the edges, and he said "This must be art, because it sure ain't entertainment.' He's right. If I'm going to see someone take her clothes off, I want to see something beautiful. I don't want realism. I want full-on fantasy. Don't get me wrong, it's really flattering when people call what I do art. But I'd much rather be known as an entertainer."

Photographer's agent: Agent Bauer * Photographer's assistant: Marco Rochas * Stylist's assistants: Aymeric Bergada du Cadet, Stephanie Miano * Hair by Maxime Mace/Calliste * Makeup by Marco Latte/B Agency * Retouching by TouchMe * Special thanks to Studio Espace Lumiere