Dita Von Tease: Pin Up Fashion Icon

It seems that most sissies have a special fondness for pin up fashions and I this sissy is no exception. I find that the combination of feminine beauty and seduction almost entrancing. Ever since I was a small child, I dreamed of being a Vegas show girl or Pin Up model. And who often comes to mind when someone mentions "Pin Up?" Dita Von Tease, of course!

Dita has such an elegance. I love her many styles and her many looks.

Imagine how fun it must be for her getting to play in so many outfits, hair styles, and makeup.

As a teenager, Dita's mother took her to buy her first bra, made from plain white cotton, and gave her a plastic egg containing a pair of wrinkly, flesh-colored tights. Dita says she was disappointed as she had been hoping to receive beautiful lacy garments and stockings, of the type she had glimpsed in her father's  Playboy magazines. This fueled her passion for lingerie. She worked in a lingerie store as a salesgirl when she was fifteen, eventually as a buyer and more recently she launched her own lingerie line. Dita has been fond of wearing elaborate lingerie such as corsets and basques with fully fashioned stockings ever since.

"I have a big collection of vintage lingerie already," she boasts. "I have a major wardrobe just for my lingerie. I have trunks full of lingerie. I've no idea how many bras I have; it's just too many to count. Hundreds at least. I'm sure that I wouldn't have to do laundry for at least two years if I didn't want to."

"I grew up in Michigan in a small town which wasn't very glamorous," she says. "When I was a little girl I remember watching old movies with my mother and I wanted to be like Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich. I'd watch them and think, 'That's what I want, I want to be a grown-up lady'. I hated being a kid. I just wanted to be a lady."


In college Von Teese studied historic costuming and aspired to work as a stylist for period films. She is a trained costume designer, often designing the photoshoots herself.

Dita Von Teese began her career in a local strip club when she was eighteen. Disappointed with the lack of originality in all the other strippers' acts, Dita created a vintage-inspired outfit, with beehive hairstyle and elbow-length gloves coupled with a basque and seamed stockings, piquing the interest of the clientele.

In her own words, she "puts the tease back into striptease" with long, elaborate dance shows with props and characters, often inspired by 1930s and 1940s musicals and films. Some of her more famous dances have involved a carousel horse, a giant powder compact, a filigree heart and a clawfoot bathtub with a working shower head. Her feather fan dance, inspired by burlesque dancer Sally Rand, featured the world's largest feather fans, now on display in Hollywood's Museum Of Sex. Her signature show features a giant martini glass.

 

Dita Von Teese is also an occasional actress. In her early years she appeared in fetish-related, soft-core pornographic movies, such as Romancing Sara, Matter of Trust, in which she is billed as Heather Sweet, and also in two hard-core fetish films by Andrew Blake: Pin Ups 2 and Decadence.

 

In recent years she has appeared in more mainstream features, such as the 2005 short film, The Death of Salvador Dali, which won the "Best Actress" award for Von Teese at Beverly Hills Film Festival.

 

Dita achieved some level of recognition in the fetish world as a tightlacer. Through the wearing of a corset for many years, she had reduced her natural waistline to 22 inches, and can be laced down as far as 16.5 inches.

 

Von Teese has appeared on a number of best-dressed lists and frequents the front row of fashion shows, particularly Christian Dior and Marc Jacobs, labels she is often seen wearing.

She has also done various catwalk work. During Los Angeles Fashion Week, Spring 2004, she modeled for former club kid Richie Rich's fashion label, Heatherette. In 2005 she appeared in the Autumn/Winter Ready-to-Wear show for Giambattista Valli, a former designer for Ungaro, in Paris. In the 2006 Milan Fashion Week, Von Teese was on the runway, opening for the Moschino diffusion label, Moschino Cheap & Chic, autumn/winter 2006/7 show. In 2007, she appeared twice in the Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture show during the Paris Fashion Week. Additionally, she has starred in several ad campaigns. She appeared in Vivienne Westwood's spring/summer 2005 collection adverts and became the face of Australian clothing range Wheels and Dollbaby for their 2006/7 Spring/Summer advertising campaign.

Dita was a featured guest on "America's Next Top Model" and was a coach in the Burlesque special "Faking It."