WHETHER splashing about in a giant cocktail glass or showcasing her perky assets in a pair of nipple tassels, Dita Von Teese continues her reign as queen of burlesque at the age of 49.
She is also happy to admit her flawless, glamorous look has not been achieved without the help of some “tweakments”.
Dita says: “I am totally into using all the tools of the beauty box. I have a little bit of Botox between my eyebrows and who knows what I might do in the future?
“Cosmetic surgery has been around since the 1700s. All those idols of mine, whether it’s Rita Hayworth, Marilyn or Marlene Dietrich — everyone had something. We’re in a really wonderful time where everything is so advanced.
“People should never feel ashamed of what’s real and what’s not. I’m all about creating fantasy and illusion.
“I do celebrate and love all different types of bodies, but I am not going to apologise to people because I got my boobs done when I was 23.”
Even though super-model Linda Evangelista recently hit the headlines claiming she had been left “permanently disfigured” after undergoing the fat-freezing procedure CoolSculpting, Dita says no one should be frightened or ashamed of using the advances in beauty technology.
Take her “amazing” boobs. That’s the word used about her impressive assets by two surgeons and which are the result of her 32D implants.
A party girl in her teens, Dita took the plunge to go under the knife aged 23 after her weight plummeted through drug use.
She says: “I gave up the drugs but my breasts never recovered.
“Recently, I was actually wondering if I should have them redone so I asked a couple of doctors. But they were like, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Your boobs are amazing, don’t mess with them.’ So, I’m leaving them alone.”
Never one to stick to convention, Dita has not heard her biological clock ticking and is not ruling out later-life motherhood either.
She says: “I think it’s OK for people to bow out of parenthood. There’s so much pressure.
“But who knows? Maybe I am going to adopt a baby or have a baby somehow like other people who are doing it in their fifties.” Dita could certainly hold her own among mums 20 years younger, Botox or no Botox. But she insists there is no deep, mysterious secret to those striking youthful looks.
She says: “To be fair, my 92-year-old grandmother is very youthful, so there are some good genes there but I do my best to take care of myself.
“I exercise and try to sleep well. I take care of my skin and use sunscreen. I don’t smoke cigarettes and I never drink more than two glasses of alcohol. A lot of it is common sense.”
‘Incredible shapes’
Born Heather Sweet in small-town America, Dita was classically trained as a ballet dancer until her teens, when her passion for vintage lingerie and old-school Hollywood glamour led her in another direction.
She says: “I looked at these 1940s women like Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich with their incredible shapes and red lips. They were so fabulous but they were all painted. It was all contrived and I loved it.”
She dyed her naturally blonde hair black and adopted the porcelain-skinned, red-lipped look, complete with tattooed beauty spot. She unveiled her look at burlesque shows in the US, standing out from her bikini-wearing peers in her vintage lingerie, and became a headliner.
An appearance on the cover of Playboy magazine in 2002, along with a seven-year relationship with rocker Marilyn Manson, projected her firmly into the mainstream.
She says: “I’ve known for a long time I’m a very average-looking person who made something of it. I decided to balance my average looks with doing something a bit different.”
To make the point, each Halloween Dita transforms herself into a “normal girl” — a blonde, fake-tanned woman in pale lip gloss with the name “Dina”, and says she never attracts as much as a second glance from men.
She says: “It’s basically a disguise of what I would look like without all the glamour tricks and the red, the lashes and the hair and no one talks to me. Men don’t hit on me.”
Not that her signature look was about attracting male attention.
Dita says: “I’ve had people say to me, ‘You know, you look younger without all that make-up on your face’. And I say, ‘I’m not doing this for you, I’m not doing this because I want to look younger, I’m not doing this because I’m trying to get a man.
“I’m doing this because it makes me feel good’.”
There have been some notable relationships over the years, among them her time with Manson. After six years together the they married in 2005 but divorced a year later because of what Dita calls “irreconcilable differences” related to the musician’s drug abuse and infidelities.
Earlier this year, he was accused of abuse, grooming and manipulation by actress Evan Rachel Wood and four other women – claims robustly denied by Manson.
While she will not discuss him today, Dita published a statement on Instagram saying the allegations against her ex-husband “do not match my personal experience during our seven years together”.
The performer is now in a long-term relationship with graphic designer Adam Rajcevich, 35.
He is off the agenda too, although Dita laughingly describes herself as a “good lay”.
She says: “I’m not putting on the showbiz in the bedroom, but I feel I’m well studied in the arts of the bedroom and I’m always evolving and learning more.”
Dita has been performing for 30 years and while there are no plans to stop, she says she is constantly asked about her retirement.
She adds: “People have been putting the fear of age into me since I was 20, asking me what I was going to do when I was too old to perform.
“It’s ridiculous. I remember being in my twenties and thinking I was going to have to stop by the time I was 30.
“It’s like brainwashing, people saying that if you’re old, you can’t do stuff.”
‘Embracing glamour’
Dita’s message is: However you look, you can turn yourself into something powerful and glamorous.
She says: “If you ever come to any of my shows, the first thing people say is they’re completely blown away by these thousands of women of all shapes and sizes embracing glamour, with amazing hair and make-up, wearing hats with their fancy dresses.
“The director Tim Burton came to the last shows we did at The London Palladium and he said he had never seen a scene like it in terms of the glamour and the energy.”
In her latest show, a cinematic striptease special called Night Of The Teese, she deliberately cast plus-sized figures and girls with tattoos to offer a different template of female beauty.
She says: “When I first started casting for my touring shows, I found the most show-stopping performers — the ones that would bring the audience to their feet — were not your typical pin-up girls but all these other women who just had something and knew what to do with it.”
l Night Of The Teese – A Cinematic Special is streaming until tomorrow. For tickets visit driift.link/DitaVonTeese
…AND HERE’S HOW TO UNLEASH THE GODDESS
DO NOT WASTE TIME WORRYING: Avoid spending your life worrying about what you look like now.
In ten years’ time you’re going to look at a picture of yourself from ten years before and be like, “Why was I wasting so much time worrying about how I looked? I looked great.”
COMPLIMENT YOURSELF: Like everyone, I look in the mirror and think, “I don’t like this and I don’t like that”.
But I’m trying to change that. What if you looked in the mirror and told your body all the things that you do like about it, being grateful for the way that it moves and carries you into the world instead of beating it up all the time?
GET LEARNING: I’m not doing anything really magical.
I just learnt how to do my own hair and do my own make-up and craft a mystique and a glamour. Anyone can do it – I’ve seen it in the audience of my shows. Teach yourself to do one thing that makes you feel good that only takes five minutes before you get out of the house.
EMBRACE YOUR BODY’S CHANGES: Sometimes your body can be even more fabulous after childbirth.
One of our performers had a baby just a few months before we filmed Night Of The Teese and her body is amazing, better than ever.
GET TO GRIPS WITH AGEING: Everyone is scared of ageing, but it’s just a fact.
Men are just as afraid of it and, yes, it’s scary – there’s that saying that ageing is not for cissies.
But the alternative is worse.
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