Storyline

With a snap of a garter and a suggestive smile, Dita Von Teese is riding her giant mechanical lipstick all the way to the mainstream. But she hasn't always been so coy. Here, some photos from her early days, and a glimpse of what Marilyn's missing."I appreciate Dita's work. I think she's incredibly beautiful, really talented. It's amazing the way she transforms herself. It's a creation all its own. I think it's unbelievably stimulating. That kind of visual, that fetish imagery tastefully done is so erotic--and to be able to evoke that in a photograph, I think that's really something."--Scarlett Johansson"You just have to look at her. 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."--Christian LouboutinThe naked woman in the giant martini glass is doing an impression of an olive. As olives go, she's not bad. Wait. She's holding a giant olive. I guess that would make her the gin. Watching Dita Von Teese's elaborately costumed and choreographed striptease shows, it's tempting to evaluate them as some kind of metaphorical performance art--until you get over your pretensions and remember that she is splashing around naked in a giant martini glass, and that alone is kind of awesome. Von Teese adds layers of substance and rips them away, until all that's left is a classically beautiful female body. She challenges you to think about what makes women sexy and then gives you permission to gawk. All the distractions simply draw attention to what's important. "It's nice that people consider what I do art," she has said. "But I'd rather be known as an entertainer."Done and done. As "the world's premier burlesque artist," Dita Von Teese has brought glamour to stripping, goth to go-go, and made a case for feathers as a viable sexual accessory. And in the past year she has become a genuine global superstar, the first nude model since Pamela Anderson to become a cross-platform cultural icon, symbol of sexual liberation, and wife to a nutcase, Marilyn Manson.Advertisers, customarily skittish of naked boobs and the women who display them, are lining up for her seal of approval: She's starred in a short film for top-shelf lingerie designer Agent Provocateur, headlined a campaign for MAC cosmetics, and perched on the Audi TT at its unveiling in London. She's the stripper as rock goddess. "Some people say what I do isn't very liberating," she once mused. "I say it's pretty liberating to get $20,000 for ten minutes' work."In a world of backseat crotch shots and Girls Gone Wild, Von Teese has not only brought back the tease, but also an element of mystery and danger. There's the face: porcelain skin and a dangerously lipsticked mouth. The body: improbably lean and impossibly curvy, cinched into corsets, wrapped in garters or lizard-skin fishnets, accented with red leather gloves and electric-blue heels. And there is her highly charitable act of marrying (and divorcing) Manson, which had the net effect of making her seem attainable. If she's within his slippery grasp, we all have a shot. Von Teese's stage shows--in venues ranging from intimate New York cabarets to 2,000-seat London arenas--are a metaphoric explosion of corsets, garters, feathers, leather, lace, and set pieces, including (but not limited to) the aforementioned martini glass and a giant motorized lipstick that she rides bronco-style, complete with glittery hat, boots, and holster.Paying tribute to legendary nudie figures like Gypsy Rose Lee and Bettie Page, Von Teese takes her time in removing each item, ending each show in a diamond thong and pasties. She makes the Pussycat Dolls look like Girl Scouts in decline. "I'm trying to prove that stripping isn't a dirty word," she has said. "There was a time when striptease was a beautiful, elegant performance." Then, in the next breath, she insists she doesn't mind if you just want to check out her ass: "I'm trying to set the record straight about what burlesque was: It's not just about a style or a look. It's about stripping."Born with a perfectly suitable nom de nudie-bar, the former Heather Sweet developed her fetish for lingerie at an early age, from peeking at her father's dirty magazines and watching old movies. She worked in a lingerie shop as a teenager, where her future was secured: "As soon as I was of legal age, I wanted to take my clothes off and be photographed re-creating nude pinups." Penthouse actually gave her a start: The first photographer she posed nude for had photographed her older sister for this magazine.Shortly thereafter, in 1992, Von Teese started one of the first Websites ever (Dita.net), which now contains 15,000 photos. She's a darling of high fashion who invites the most basic-instinctual reactions when she's wearing, say, aviator goggles, a corset, and nothing else. In her slutty-secretary skirts and bondage gear, Von Teese celebrates everything that's traditionally female while rocking the new-school perv. In her double-sided book, Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese, she reveals that her favorite game to play is "damsel in distress" and her "favorite perverts" are, in order, "seamed-stocking fetishists," "corset aficionados," and foot fetishists. "Are all men fetishists?" she wonders in her book. "More or less, yes."She should know.--Michael MartinMartin is the editor in chief of Nerve.com. He's written for Arena, New York, and other publications."She looks good."--Chris Rock